Writing Again
I've started working on my books again on a semi-regular basis. For the last year or two I have been in a really awful place mentally to focus on it--just feeling really overwhelmed with everything that I am wanting and trying to do. It made it very difficult to do anything, really. But now I am a little more stable mind-wise--much more content and feeling in control of my life. I've also started reading constantly in my spare time, and that in in itself has helped markedly in not only making me want to write, but actually improving my writing.
My current goal is to get Book One to a point where an agent will want to rep it to publishers. I am working mostly on the front end of the novel--particularly the first few chapters. Almost everyone who read the final draft in 2009 (god it's been forever) said they had a hard time getting into the story at first, but that they couldn't put it down once they'd gotten over that first hump. I also had a request for sample pages from the first agent I queried, but they didn't ask for a full. The agents I've queried who asked for sample pages as part of the query process have also been uninterested (though admittedly I haven't queried many), and I think it's because of the weakness of the opening. So I am trying to tighten up the writing and more effectively draw in the reader.
It's coming along all right. There are some challenges due to the nature of the main character as well as some supernatural forces (what good would any fantasy novel be without these?) at work that the reader is not aware of. At the very least it's an interesting exercise. I really do believe I can get this thing polished up enough to get repped, I just have to keep working on it. I know I can write at least as well as most of the people getting published in the fantasy space these days, so there's no reason why I can't see this through.
My current goal is to get Book One to a point where an agent will want to rep it to publishers. I am working mostly on the front end of the novel--particularly the first few chapters. Almost everyone who read the final draft in 2009 (god it's been forever) said they had a hard time getting into the story at first, but that they couldn't put it down once they'd gotten over that first hump. I also had a request for sample pages from the first agent I queried, but they didn't ask for a full. The agents I've queried who asked for sample pages as part of the query process have also been uninterested (though admittedly I haven't queried many), and I think it's because of the weakness of the opening. So I am trying to tighten up the writing and more effectively draw in the reader.
It's coming along all right. There are some challenges due to the nature of the main character as well as some supernatural forces (what good would any fantasy novel be without these?) at work that the reader is not aware of. At the very least it's an interesting exercise. I really do believe I can get this thing polished up enough to get repped, I just have to keep working on it. I know I can write at least as well as most of the people getting published in the fantasy space these days, so there's no reason why I can't see this through.