Another One Bites the Dust
I put my nose to the grind this week and, accidentally, finished a book. The first draft at least.
I tried working on Lucky since it’s the only stand-alone I’m interested in right now. I really, really did. It just wasn’t happening. Lucy and Alastor are on vacation in my brain and did not want to be disturbed. Instead, I got some writing done on Biker Blues. I figured I’d buckle down and do some writing, maybe get it through the next fourth.
Instead, I’m looking at the finished draft somehow. There was supposed to be a whole drawn-out tense exchange with a character and Venom took one look at the guy and slugged him. Which changed the entire dynamic of the interaction and turned that scene into the climax instead of just ramping up the tension.
I’ll need to go back and do some heavy edits to change previous scenes so everything ties up nicely, but I already needed to do that because I changed a lot of backstory and character relationships while I was writing.
That’s not to say I didn’t plot out Biker Blues, but there’s an entire kidnapping scene that just doesn’t exist anymore and another scene is going to get WAY longer. My current word count is about 60,000 words, but that’ll probably get closer to 65,000 or 70,000 when it’s done.
I’m going to take a break from Biker Blues for a minute now. I know I’m terrible about editing when I’m fresh off finishing because they’re all my darlings and I love them and I don’t want to change anything about them. I gotta let the shine on the story dull so I can look at it with the cold, calculating eyes of a psychopath as my English Teachers raised me to.
What am I working on next week? Absolutely no idea. Like I said, I’m still not feeling Lucky, so it’ll probably be either Ace of Wands or Moonlight and Storm. Who knows.
As far as social media goes, I finally figured out how to change my name on TikTok so I can get that more writing focused. I also did some searching for artists I can commission for promotion art once I get the ball rolling.
Lots of denial Queries back for Wolves and Rain, but one comment from an agent really stuck out to me. She made a point that I’ve never published anything before and, while my writing and query letter have an interesting and engaging voice, I’m an unknown. Not a lot of agents or publishers are going to want to take a chance on a four-part story with an unknown writer when two of the four books aren’t even written yet. As such, I’m gonna put a pause on submitting anything for Wolves and Rain, get some promotional art, and maybe look at writing some stand-alone stories so I can get a following and some credibility in the publishing world.
Still, I told myself no new stories until I finish Biker Blues, so now I get to decide what to start with. I’m giving myself the weekend to pinpoint one of the many plot bunnies in my brain before I decide which one gets an actual outline next week. Wish me luck!