Seeds: What’s Next?

It’s springtime here in Alberta, and that means planting. I have been doing my part to make the earth fruitful, in my small little plot of land that is my yard. Some bedding plants, some perennials, and a few tomatoes and an couple of pumpkins. That’s as far as I got.

In previous years I have had a more extensive garden, including carrots, and peas, and potatoes, and other various vegetables which generally meant a whole lot of work without not much yield, due to the craziness of trying to grow vegetables when there is a possibility of snow or freezing pretty much any month of the year here. Hence my lack of enthusiasm this year!

It’s always fun to plant the seeds, though, and watch the garden grow. This year I may not have planted any physical seeds, but there are a few seeds rattling around in my brain all the same; seeds of book plans, future blog posts, and  future writing endeavours.

I thought I would share these here, just to help keep myself accountable!

1. THE BOOK/S (1? 2? 3?)

a) Revisions

I spent some time doing some planning the other day, and mapped out how many more chapters of revision I have to do and made myself a time-line, just so I have something to shoot at. Turns out if I can do about 6 chapters a week, I should be finished revision by the end of August, even with the holidays we have planned over the summer.

I am hoping to get the revised MS to beta readers in September. If any of you are interested in being a beta reader, I would be happy to take you up on it. And for those of you who have read the earlier draft and want to see the more polished version, I’d love to get your feedback as well. It will be the whole kit and caboodle, as they say, not just the first of the trilogy that you have read before, just to sweeten the deal.

b) Next steps?

After revisions are done, I will have to take the feedback from the beta readers and look at the whole MS and make some decisions. Will it be one book? Or maybe two? What is the best way forward? Does some of the things I took out need to come back?

I have to get a book launch plan in place, and a cover, and marketing plans, etc. I plan to do this over October and November. I will also do the final edits in October. I’m toying with sending it out again for a professional edit, but I’m not sure. We’ll see.

c) Launch?

Keeping in mind all of the above, and depending on how the revisions and feedback from readers goes, I’m looking at a launch sometime in the first half of the New Year. Which totally terrifies me. Watch this space!

 

2. FUTURE BLOG POSTS

I am settling into a bit of a rhythm here on the blog, and so far it’s working pretty well for me this year. I don’t know if you have noticed, but generally the months are structured like this:

First week – something about the Dark Ages. Might be a focus on a person from that time, or  something about the culture, or whatever strikes my fancy. As my book is set in this era, I like to keep that focus to hopefully gain interest on my book, both before and after publication.

Second week – something random, maybe a book or movie review, or another Dark Ages post, or an interview with another writer, or whatever. Once in awhile I’ll throw in some writing-related topics, like my recent one on tropes.

Third week – this is where I hope to have my Fiction Feature, where I share original short stories, like last week’s story, and this one I put up a couple of months ago.

Fourth week – my review of the book I read for my Year of Fun Reading.

I”m not exactly tied to this structure with bonds of steel. My first and last posts of the month will generally be as I have outlined here, but I have a little more flexibility with the middle two. Probably I won’t get a story up every month, but I’m aiming to get one up every two months for sure.

At the beginning of the month I try to fill in the topics for each week, just to avoid the weekly panic of what to write about. A little planning goes a long way. (I should remember that, to curb my “pantsing” tendencies…)

3. FUTURE WRITING ENDEAVOURS

a) Professional market?

The last couple of years I have had a goal to get published in a professional paying short story market. There are two reasons for this, first of all these markets generally pay better, but more importantly, I want to see if I can get accepted into the markets where the big boys play. I’ve had no success so far, but I have had at least one publication tell me to send them something else, so that’s inching forward, at any rate.

It’s hard, though. I’m naturally more of a novel writer than a short story writer. But it’s good practice for me to write shorter pieces, it helps me with my book writing.

So, this is still a goal but I find with being caught up in the book revisions I don’t have as much time to write short stories. That is one of the reasons I decided to put more stories on my blog, it forces me to write them! But then I also have to write some for publication, as generally editors don’t want anything previously published, and having a story on a blog (on any other online venue) is considered previously published. It all comes down to time, and priorities. I have to put the book first, so story-writing often gets pushed aside.

b) Professional development

I hope to schedule more time for growth as a writer. That means more writing, as explained above, but workshops, conferences, etc are good, too. Unfortunately I will miss the wonderful When Words Collide festival in Calgary, I will be out of province then. But there are many opportunities for writers these days, just looking online you can find myriad opportunities for writers who want to work on their craft. And I’ve got lots of “how to” books I can work through as well. So I don’t have any excuse.

In October I’m treating myself to a marvellous experience called Hutchmoot, in Nashville. This is the brainchild of the folks over at The Rabbit Room, which is pretty much my favourite place on the web. It’s not a writing workshop per se, but it will be a great place for my artistic soul to get refreshed and filled. And I’m hoping to meet some fellow writers and get some encouragement (and give some, too!).

I hope your spring and summer season is full of fruitful seeds, as well. Thank you so much for stopping by here, and reading my words. It is appreciated more than you know.

And if you have any suggestions for what YOU would like to see me do here, please let me know in the comments.

 

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Feature image from D Sharon Pruitt, on flickr