The Week of August 24th and End of August 2008

I’ve met all of my goals for the month and I’ll consider this my week and month reckoning, since there’s only one day left of August, anyway, and all I really want to do today is sit around and finish reading the book I'm only 100 pages from the end of. This past week I spent 9.5 hours on short stories (just the minimum, I know, to meet my goals. I just haven’t been feeling the stories as much; I’ve been way more interested in the new novel). I wrote 5,445 words on the new novel and I sent out 5 submissions.

I feel pretty good about the work I got done in August, the end of the last month of summer break. I had a productive summer, and while I definitely feel like I’ve fizzled out a little as far as short story energy goes, I’m super involved in the new novel and I’m also really excited about some children’s book projects. I’m not too concerned about losing my steam on short stories, either, because I have a whole stack of new ones to bring to workshop this semester and I know once I get some feedback on them I’m going to get reinvigorated.
I’m ending the month with:

1. 26,202 words out 15,000 on the new novel (36,499 words total)
2. 31 out of 31 hours spent on short stories
3. 10 out of 10 submissions sent to journals

The Week of August 17th

This week I wrote 7998 words on the new novel, did some more work on the children’s book sequel, spent 7 hours on short stories, and sent out 1 submission. I’ve already exceeded my goal for the new novel for this month and expect to do another few thousand words before the month is over.

I’m feeling really excited about this new novel and am beginning to feel like already, this is much better than my thesis, which is kind of cool but also kind of scary because it reminds me how much work I have yet to do to get my thesis to that finish point. But I’m going to get some feedback on it for the next step and I feel confident that I’ll be able to make it come together in time. I’ve already passed the current draft of my thesis on to the head of my thesis committee and will try to get the rest of my committee to read it once the semester starts back up. In the meantime, it’s good to already be well on my way with the next novel.

For the month:

1. 20,757 words out of 15,000 on the new novel (a little over 31,000 words total)
2. 22.5 5 hours out of 31 on stories
3. 5 out of 10 submissions

The Week of August 10th

Well I had kind of an odd week. Things were really hopping at the Writing Center as it was the last week of the last summer session and everything was due. I also spent two days in varying degrees of debilitation from the longest lasting headache I’ve ever had in my life. But somehow in between it all I managed to find time to spend 7.5 hours on stories, send out 1 journal submission, and write 4,036 words on the new novel. I did some more work on the children’s book sequel, as well. I expect to really pick up the pace the next couple weeks since I have some time off before the semester starts.

I’m at:

1. 12759 out of 15,000 on the new novel (It’s at a little over 23,000 words overall)
2. 15.5 out of 31 hours on stories
3. 4 out of 10 journal submissions

Rejected, But Still Trudging On . . .

Well, I just got a response from the agent who requested the manuscript. She said that she liked it and gave me some specific complements on it but she said that she just didn't fall in love with it enough to offer representation. It was a very nice rejection, though, and she did say that she's sure I'll get it accepted somewhere. But it's always hard when someone just doesn't like what you're doing quite enough to want to work with you. But I'll keep at it. I've still got 14 agents I'm waiting to hear back from, and there's plenty more I could submit to. And you know, there's always small presses that accept unsolicited manuscripts . . .

The Week of August 3rd

I had a really good week this week, even though I was really busy at work, and I somehow managed, in between having tons of students to tutor (and getting sick!) to get a fair amount of writing done.

This week I wrote 5517 words on the new novel (I’m currently at a little over 19,000 words total) and I spent 6.5 hours working on stories. I also got some more work done on the sequel to that children’s book, which I’m pretty excited about right now and am having a really good time with.

I sent out 3 journal submissions. I also received, this week, 2 more agent rejections and, even though I said I wouldn’t, I went ahead and sent out a couple more queries. Right now for the agent search my stats are: I’ve sent out 22 queries total. I’ve received 7 rejections and 1 manuscript request. That means I still have 15 out there who haven’t said no, yet, so that seems like a pretty solid number.

For the month:

1. 8,723 out of 15,000 words written on new novel
2. 8 out of 31 hours spent on short stories
3. 3 out of 10 submissions sent to journals

The Week of August 1st

In the first two days of August I hit well over my goal for the new novel and a little under my goal for stories, so I think it kind of balances out.

I’m at:

1. 3,206 out of 15,500 words written on the new novel (the novel is currently at 13,503 words)
2. 1.5 out of 31 hours spent working on short stories
3. 0 out of 10 submissions sent to journals

August 2008 Goals

August should be something of an easy month for me because I’m done with the third draft of my thesis and I’m at a point now where I don’t want to do any more to it until I can get some feedback from other people. It’s coming along well and I’m super excited about how it’s coming together but I think I need to step away from it and get some new perspectives to make the most out of my next revision.

While I’m letting my thesis sit, I’m going to add working on the first draft of my new novel into my goals. I got a little over 10,000 words of the new novel written in July and so I’m ready to set the modest goal of 500 words a day (15,500 for the month). This is a very low goal and at that rate it’ll take me until the end of the year (and possibly into the beginning of 2009, depending on how long this one decides to be) to finish the first draft, but that’s fine because I need to keep my thesis as my top priority, since it has an actual deadline, and working on short stories in a close second place, since that’ll help build a strong query letter for an agent hunt (and since I’m taking Workshop next semester . . .). And anyway, my real goal here is to have a complete draft of it done by the time I’m finished with my thesis next spring so that when I embark down that long (and likely disappointing) road to try to find an agent, I’ll be distracted by rewriting my next major project.

I’m going to set a low goal for stories, too, just 31 hours for the month, an hour a day. I’ll probably exceed both of these goals but I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself with either, right now, since I’m going to be really busy at work for the next two weeks and after that I’ve got to get my syllabus and everything ready for next semester.

My goal as far as the children’s book agent hunt is going to be low, too, for this month. I’ve got one more query all packaged and ready to send, which will put me at an even 20 from day 1. I think I’m going to hold off on sending any more after that until I’ve heard back from more of the 20 I’ve already sent to (and at least from the one who requested a manuscript). It’s not that I’m being super optimistic and feel like there’s a good chance one of those 20 will want me (after all, 5 of the 20 have already said no), but I tend to get stressed out if I have too many balls in the air and with all the stories I have out to journals added in, it’s just too much right now. I’m sure I’ll do more by the end of the month but I’m not going to set a goal because it’s going to just depend. And as usual, I want to submit to 10 journals this month.

So, my goals are:

1. 15,500 words on my new novel
2. 31 hours spent on short stories
3. 10 short story submissions sent to journals

End of July 2008

I had a very productive month and am ending with a definite feeling of accomplishment. I finished the third draft of my novel and really feel like it’s a strong one. I’m ready now to have some early readers take a look at it, which is an exciting but also scary stage to be moving in to.

Got another agent rejection, although this one was an encouraging ‘this idea is very interesting but it’s not right for me’ (which in a way is a bad sign that I didn’t do my homework well enough but it’s still nice to know that this agent thinks it’s a good idea, anyway).

I’m ending the month having met all my goals, with:

1. 19 out of 19 novel chapters revised (third draft completed!)
2. 20 out of 20 hours spent on short stories
3. 10 out of 10 submissions sent to journals
4. 19 out of as many as possible queries sent to agents (and received 5 rejections; 1 manuscript request)