[writing] Update on goals and activity
Back in January, I posted my year's writing goals [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ].
Here's what I said about June and July:
June, 2012 - Initial revisions to Their Currents Turn Awry, release to my first readers.
July, 2012 - Take a break from Sunspin, pursue short fiction commitments.
In practice, what I did was reverse these two. I finished the first draft of Currents in mid-May, and decided to take my break in June rather than bulling into initial revisions. Then I spent a bunch of time on Going to Extremes and some other work. I still owe a couple of short stories this month.
However, next month I will not immediately start the Currents revisions.
Had a long talk with my agent yesterday about the state of the market, my books and my career. Because the sales process is ongoing, I won't comment on how Sunspin is doing out there in the market. Suffice to say that with the overall issues in publishing, we're looking for diversification.
This is actually a long-standing strategy of ours rather than a change in direction. One piece of that is already in play; the Little Dog collaborative project with urban fantasy author J.A. Pitts. That should be happening mostly over the summer. So is another element; Going to Extremes, the Antarctica/cancer book. The Waterloo Productions feature-length documentary project about me is tied into Extremes as well. I plan to have the finalized version of the book proposal off to my agent by Friday of this week, so we can hopefully go to market quite soon.
Where the change in direction occurs is that we've added two more elements, one of which will slide into my schedule prior to the restart on Currents. One is that I'll be revising for market a YA science fiction novel I wrote a few years ago called Other Me. (Think Philip K. Dick identity paranoia for kids.) It got shelved simply because I was very busy at the time, and I've always had something else to do. Now I'm going to take a few weeks or a month to work through Other Me with a strong revision pass.
The other new element is an illustrated novelty book of sex humor. I now have a very good artist lined up, and will be developing the project over the summer with a probable deliverable next fall, depending on the art schedule. Still in discussions with my agent about whether this is an independent press project or a trade press project, though she is potentially interested in repping it to the trade press. I'm not going to say more about the project right now, because I want to see how it gels before discussing further detail in public.
There are also plans in the wind for some Web series scripting, along with the usual array of short story ideas and opportunities.
Sometimes I think there's not enough going on in my writing life. Apparently, I am an idiot.
Here's what I said about June and July:
June, 2012 - Initial revisions to Their Currents Turn Awry, release to my first readers.
July, 2012 - Take a break from Sunspin, pursue short fiction commitments.
In practice, what I did was reverse these two. I finished the first draft of Currents in mid-May, and decided to take my break in June rather than bulling into initial revisions. Then I spent a bunch of time on Going to Extremes and some other work. I still owe a couple of short stories this month.
However, next month I will not immediately start the Currents revisions.
Had a long talk with my agent yesterday about the state of the market, my books and my career. Because the sales process is ongoing, I won't comment on how Sunspin is doing out there in the market. Suffice to say that with the overall issues in publishing, we're looking for diversification.
This is actually a long-standing strategy of ours rather than a change in direction. One piece of that is already in play; the Little Dog collaborative project with urban fantasy author J.A. Pitts. That should be happening mostly over the summer. So is another element; Going to Extremes, the Antarctica/cancer book. The Waterloo Productions feature-length documentary project about me is tied into Extremes as well. I plan to have the finalized version of the book proposal off to my agent by Friday of this week, so we can hopefully go to market quite soon.
Where the change in direction occurs is that we've added two more elements, one of which will slide into my schedule prior to the restart on Currents. One is that I'll be revising for market a YA science fiction novel I wrote a few years ago called Other Me. (Think Philip K. Dick identity paranoia for kids.) It got shelved simply because I was very busy at the time, and I've always had something else to do. Now I'm going to take a few weeks or a month to work through Other Me with a strong revision pass.
The other new element is an illustrated novelty book of sex humor. I now have a very good artist lined up, and will be developing the project over the summer with a probable deliverable next fall, depending on the art schedule. Still in discussions with my agent about whether this is an independent press project or a trade press project, though she is potentially interested in repping it to the trade press. I'm not going to say more about the project right now, because I want to see how it gels before discussing further detail in public.
There are also plans in the wind for some Web series scripting, along with the usual array of short story ideas and opportunities.
Sometimes I think there's not enough going on in my writing life. Apparently, I am an idiot.