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Vengeance of the Hunter

Bone Walker, Child of Ocean Child of Stars, Mirror's Gate, Queen of Souls, Shards of Recollection, Vengeance of the Hunter

Wow, there sure are a lot of books here

It occurred to me this week that I have six, count ’em, six books in progress in various stages, and as part of the Great Get My Ass Back in Gear Initiative, it might behoove me to do a quick rundown of where all of these books are and what needs to get done with them. Therefore, by way of high-level overview and more or less in order of priority, here we go!

  • Bone Walker. Urban fantasy, the first sequel to Faerie Blood. I’m very close to the end of Chapter 7 on this. I have not yet formally queried it to Drollerie but plan to do so as soon as I have a working draft. Beta readers, be on the lookout for a call in the latter half of the year.
  • Queen of Souls. Urban fantasy, a sequel of sorts to the Hades and Persephone myth. This is the most complete of the lot since the first draft is actually finished, and I am stalled out a little ways into doing the second. I last left off finishing editing the Chapter Formerly Known as Chapter 1, and which is more like Chapter 4 now. I need to pick up again from there, so I can get this thing into queryable shape and get it out the door.
  • Shadow of the Rook. Fantasy, Book 2 of the trilogy The Dove, the Rook, and the Hawk; Book 1 is of course Lament of the Dove, and that’s out getting queried right now. Since this is one big story, I want to have progress done on it in case somebody wants to actually buy the whole shebang. Currently trying to get out of Chapter 2.
  • Mirror’s Gate. Fantasy, set in the same universe as The Dove, the Rook, and the Hawk. Still in Chapter 1 and the story is still taking shape.
  • Child of Ocean, Child of Stars, in which a young telepath discovers things that could completely wreck the budding alliance between humanity and the native species of Nereus. Soft sci-fi. Three chapters and change in.
  • Shards of Recollection, in which a young thief falls in with a smuggler eking out a ragtag existence–and discovers that he’s forgotten some dangerous secrets that could bring a world to war, not the least of which is his own past. Soft sci-fi. Didn’t like the first draft’s initial start, started over, still in Chapter 1 on this too.

With pretty much all of the first drafts in progress, I need to buckle down and do some heavy duty outline work. I’m really kind of daunted realizing I have finished three whole novels (Faerie Blood, Lament, and Queen of Souls), and have FIVE MORE waiting to get done. The two big things that really need to get done are finishing Bone Walker so that my editor can tell me if she wants it, and getting Queen of Souls ready for its escape into the wide world. Anything above and beyond that is gravy, but if I want to make some serious progress by the end of the year, it’s time to start some serious planning.

Wish me luck, folks.

April 8, 2010 by
Bone Walker, Mirror's Gate, Short Pieces, Vengeance of the Hunter

Finally, some more words

I’ve been frustrated enough with my months-long block on regular writing that I figured tonight I should try the multi-novelling trick. That’s helped in the past, and I felt it was long past time to try it again, just for the sake of advancing some pointers on various works on progress. I’ve mentioned before how it’s often helpful for me to just try to do little chunks at a time–and tonight, I was pleased to note that it worked again.

So yeah, a small number of words for Bone Walker, Mirror’s Gate, and Shadow of the Rook out of the novels in progress–and a few more for the as of yet untitled story about my Psychic Chick of Size. Whose name is, by the way, Elizabeth Breckenridge. Her male lead is Ross Taggart, and so far what I know about him is that he’s actually too heavy himself (because if there’s anything as rare as a fat heroine in a fantasy story, it’s an overweight hero) by thirty or forty pounds, and that he’s either a private investigator or a reporter or maybe a blogger. I’m not sure which yet. Waiting to see if anything pops out of my head as I throw words at the story.

And we’ll have to see if I finish it in time to submit it to and for their anthology.

Meanwhile, the word stats:

Bone Walker:
Written tonight: 109
Chapter 7 total: 1,613
Bone Walker total (first draft): 18,347

Mirror’s Gate:
Written tonight: 104
Chapter 1 total: 1,302
Mirror’s Gate total (first draft): 1,302

Shadow of the Rook:
Written tonight: 112
Chapter 2 total: 3,950
Shadow of the Rook total (first draft): 13,378

Untitled short story:
Written tonight: 266
Untitled short story total: 500

February 21, 2010 by
Bone Walker, Child of Ocean Child of Stars, Queen of Souls, Shards of Recollection, Vengeance of the Hunter

And now, back to business

Now that I’m back from a delightful sojourn up to Canada to see my favorite band, and now that I’m done with “The Blood of the Land” and editing Lament of the Dove, it’s time to think about what I need to be doing next.

First up is likely to be resuming editing Queen of Souls. Y’all may remember (at least, those of you who were following my now-defunct annathewriter Livejournal) that I had barely started editing the second draft; now I need to dive back into that and getting it closer to being formally queryable.

Meanwhile, I have four, count ’em, four other works in progress that need attention, all of which need some serious review of their core concepts so that I can start planning them better and getting more work done on them. These are of course Faerie Bones (the projected Book 2 for Faerie Blood), Shadow of the Rook (Book 2 for Lament of the Dove), Shards of Recollection (which I never have been happy with yet), and Child of Ocean, Child of Stars (which starts okay but which needs further review). I don’t know yet which one I’m going to start throwing serious words at; I think this is a decision I’ll need to make after I get a bunch of outlines written up.

September 14, 2009 by