BIANCA is finally done. What started as the first book of a new series nearly 5 years ago is now finished. Stephen King talks about the ideas that stick around as the ones worth following up on and, man, this one stuck. Even though I all but abandoned it when I first wrote it, struggling with a coffee shop description (perhaps the most pathetic reason to give up on a book), I felt compelled to come back, again and again to finish these kids’ tales. Hopefully, this is not their last.

This is not the first time, after all, I’ve tried to finish this story in those 5 years. Other attempts have been made to write this book.

That all being said, let’s talk about what’s going on in front of me:

Project BIANCA, middle grade contemporary fantasy: 1st Draft Done, it’s not been printed up and will be sealed away in the Vault of Destiny (otherwise known as a little shelf at my desk) for the remainder of the month. I don’t come back to it until June 1, where I’ll start 2nd draft edits, where I mark it up with a red pen and tear it to shreds. Those red pen edits will also be due by June 30.

Project BIANCA cover

Project NESS, middle grade contemporary fantasy: Time to start reviewing Beta Reader notes. I’ve had some lovely, wonderful people read my book (the first in a separate series), offer their thoughts, and not it’s time to start making changes. Some characters need more shine while others need a bigger boost. There’s also the Matt Bell “Weasel Words” which can all be changed around, so I’ll be doing that as well. Once this 5th Draft (hey, that’s the name of the site) is done by May 31, then it’ll be time to start the Pitch Document and…start querying agents this summer.

Project GREY, middle grade science-fiction: still pitching to agents, though I haven’t made much progress thanks to April being so tough. I have a few agents lined up whose profiles I really liked on my phone. Just need to make the switch over to the laptop and actually pitch the darn book. Also, still waiting to hear back from an agent on a full manuscript request I submitted back in November. That’s five months now, where I’ve been seeing average wait time to be 6-9 months. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. I’m not checking my Spam every day. You are.

By the end of the year, barring some miracle, this would give me three books, all Book 1s of hopeful series, to pitch literary agents. You don’t stop. I think that’s how you win this. GREY has already been pitched to nearly 30 agents, so I still have some wiggle room there, and the others are also going to help me operate as spears to get to my goals. More spears, more chances to strike a target. I don’t know. Does that analogy work?

Speaking of work…

Thanks for reading,

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