As I sit down to write this blog, I find that it is already almost halfway through the month of August, but I see it as necessary to still reflect on July. Without further ado, July was a busy month, just as June before it, but I got a bit more writing done as I got into the swing of the semester, as I was also in two master’s courses for the whole month that wrapped up in the first week of August (part of why this blog is significantly late). I’ve also kept up with querying, but there hasn’t been much movement there yet.
Announcement
Some of you might have seen my post about LA Worldcon a week or so ago, but I can officially say that I will be participating in two panels while at Worldcon at the end of August. My schedule is:
Mycology in Spec Fic: Separating Fact From Fiction on 8/28 at 4:30 pm PDT
Multidisciplinary Futures: Creating SFF Across Media on 8/30 at 1:30 pm PDT
I am stoked to be on both of these panels and to meet the cool folks I’ll be sharing them with, as well as meeting up with people that I met last year in Seattle. Writing can be an isolating pursuit, so a yearly romp at Worldcon is always well needed.
Progress
This month I started ramping up on Project D and wrote a little over 12k words on the project. This word count was heavily weighted towards the end of the month. I’ll talk about it more below in the what I’m learning section, but momentum was difficult to achieve earlier in the month.
On the querying front, I’ve sent 39 queries to agents and have received 15 rejections so far. I have not yet heard back from the editor I submitted the book to, which is not unexpected, as editor timelines tend to be long and his precedent is six months. So maybe I’ll hear by Christmas.
Liesure
I’ve watched through more of Leverage and started to watch House again, though I’m not sure that I’ve had enough distance between watches because I remember what happened too much to make it interesting again. I also watched the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice at least three times. It is my favorite movie, and I put it on when I need to rest and relax or when I’m cooking. Most of my TV watching happens in the kitchen on my iPad while I cook. I meal prep each weekend for two or three hours, and it’s a nice ritualistic start to my week.
What I’m learning
Momentum is vital. School really got in the way of my progress this month in ways that I, at first, did not understand. Upon reflection and taking a step back, I realized that the problem I was having was one of momentum. The majority of my coursework for the week this summer was due on Saturday evening. This meant that I wrote full-bore the first couple of days of the week on creative writing and neglected my homework, and then found myself unable to write due to needing to sit with my homework for the rest of the week. The result was that each Sunday I would not write, and then Monday I’d have to ease myself back into it. The last week of July, I tried something different. I set a goal that I would write 500 words a day, not on average, every day. My thought was that I could still get my homework done (and probably at a healthier pace) and get the same amount or more words than I got in the two days I wrote without losing my momentum. It turned out that I was right. There were a couple of days where I got 1k words, which easily pushed my word count higher than prior weeks. I now know that I need consistency, even if the daily number is lower. I of course prefer daily high numbers, but with a master’s degree in the mix, that is not always attainable.
Looking Forward
Project D is my priority. My goal is to finish it before I leave for Worldcon on the 26th of August, which means my pace needs to be a little under 3k words a day. I would say this will be difficult to manage; however, I’ve basically been training with weights during school, and now those weights have come off, so barring too much time spent on home improvement projects and spending time with friends, I don’t think that goal will be much of an issue.
Once I’ve drafted project D, I will send it to my writing group and then jump into revisions. There will be a bit of a gap in time that won’t be long enough for another novel, but might just be long enough for me to work on expanding one of my short stories into a novella. I think I might go and turn the 7k short story, Punk Pixie Noir, into a 30k or so novella. It has such a fun concept that makes for great worldbuilding that the short story just couldn’t quite do justice.
But first I must finish Project D. That is my main priority at the moment.
‘Til next time,
Naomi
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