STATUS – 8.5.2024 –

Birthday was two days ago.

Maybe last year it would have bothered me more to see another year pass by without a published novel, book deal, or even a literary agent, under my belt, but that’s okay. This wasn’t the year for that. (I think I hit this mental clarity last year?) This was the year for cementing time in the new home, preparing for the worst of what we moved for, and hoping we’d all be stronger together.

I’m writing this from my in-laws house. We slept over last night, as the boys all miss their mother, who is taking care of her mother in an incredibly hard time in everyone’s life. I’m trying to keep details vague, until we know more, but all I can say is hug people close to you when you can. It’s a simple message, but perhaps the strongest.

I’ve been here another year. Let’s pray we’re all here for my next one, yeah?

PROJECT UPDATE:

CLOUD – When I started writing Project CLOUD, a middle grade contemporary fantasy with a lot of mythological influence, I decided to do it by hand. Pen and paper, Part of my inspiration for this type of story was the work of Akira Toriyama, and as he drew and wrote the entirety of DRAGON BALL by hand I felt it appropriate to honor him by doing this story that same way.

It’s taking too long.

I think I’ll finish up these first ten chapters by hand, then switch over to writing the rest on the computer. I’ll have time in the future to want to slow myself down, take it page by page, and let it feel “old school,” but right now? I have this sense of panic that I’m not creating enough. Writing a novel in a notebook is cool and all, but I need to be moving.

Every so often I create a chart like this to remind myself how to work. Did it again last night because I CLEARLY forgot.

A picture of a diagram in a notebook with psycopathic handwriting. From one box marked BuJo, it leasds to another box marked Field Notes, then out to two potential boxes marked Story Bible and One Note, which all coalesce into a final box marked WORD Doc. — A story idea starts in the Bullet Journal, gets fleshed out in a Field Notes to see if it has legs, that can either move to One Note or a larger notebook “story bible” for full development, before finally moving into a Word Document for its first draft.

#AMQUERYING – GREY is back in the fold. It took a little while to work up the courage to finally pitch this agent I had scouted a while ago, but I finally hit Submit last week. This brings my grand total of submissions for Project GREY, a middle-grade science fiction adventure, up to thirty-one. I think if/when I hit thirty-five that’ll be the time to pull the story and rework it.

Project NESS is still going out. Recently had an agent, who declined, say they loved the concept and totally understood why I picked them to pitch it to as it matched their interests perfectly. They just couldn’t take it for…reasons? I guess? Man. What do you even do with that?

CURRENTLY LISTENING: I get why she does lyrical collaborations, but come on Lindsey. We’re here to listen to your violin sing. Not someone else.

CURRENTLY READING: My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi

Up to volume 7 of this massive re-read I’m attempting. I’ve bought the first 29 volumes, but only read up to volume 21, I think? (The series just ended in Japan, ironically, the day after my birthday, at volume 42.)

Horikoshi has written the best story of what it means to feel like a failure as an artist, disguised as a superhero comic.