Anansi- Working from the end

Yesterday I was struggling to even get through a page of “Anansi.” My girlfriend was sitting beside me and I mentioned that I had the ending wrapped up in my mind. Then she suggested writing that first.

I got through the page, doing a mockup of what I had in mind for the ending. The ending lends itself to a visual medium well, since I have a reel in my head of what I want it to show. I’ll have to see if the text is enough to convey that to readers.

Although I’ve been working at a slower pace than normal, I’ve still reached over 2,000 words already. Page by page I’ll get through another book.

Anansi- Slower Progress

I usually start a new project aiming for 500 words a day, but “Anansi” has been tough to get into at the start. Instead of letting that discourage me completely I’ve decided to just go back to my one page a day goal. This was the goal I started writing with over a decade ago. It is slower, but is better than not doing anything since 500 seems overwhelming at the moment. As I get further into the story I may have days where I hit 500 or even 1,000 easy. The one page goal will help me stay motivated and get to the meat of the story quicker.

If I stay consistent with it now I should still have a draft done by year-end.

Also, I still hope to recover my USB and get access to my fourth and six book. Fingers crossed.

Anansi

I’ve officially started “Anansi,” the story of a Jim Crow-era vigilante. I’m only 1,000 words in so far. Long story short but I’ve had issues locating the USB I kept most of my files on and I’ve had issues with my backups. Two of my books are in tact elsewhere: “Hazard” and “Alive: Part II.” “The Garden of Abel” is also in tact on this site.

“Elseworld” will need an edit again.

However, I have no full copies of “Alive: Part I” or “Memory Catcher.” I hoped to pitch the latter to an agent.

It’s been tough staying motivated to write with this situation, fearing that my seventh book is actually the fourth now. I hope to recover the files but with everyday that passes I’m worried I won’t.

All I can do is try to stay motivated, keep writing and stay hopeful.

Continuing along

One week into a new job so job hunting can finally be removed from my daily to-do list. Two other projects have popped up since, so I haven’t had as much time for short story or book querying. However, I want to get back to that this week and continue on with my goals of getting a short story published and getting an agent this year.

Both goals are proving to be very difficult (even more than expected) but I don’t want to get discouraged. I accomplished a big goal this year, of getting a full-time permanent position, and I want to stay motivated to knock others off the list.

In the meantime, please check out my published short stories with my beacon link.

Back to writing soon

I’ve been focused on sending out more book and short story submissions recently. However, like writing, it is a task that can cause burnout after a while. I have 15+ agent queries and short story submissions (each) out at the moment and awaiting responses. I hope I can get at least one yes out of them but I’ve been here before. Right now, I’m done sending those out and I’ll wait and recharge before sending more.

Tomorrow I plan to start editing “Memory Catcher.” As I get through the book I’ll see if it ends up needing a rewrite like “Alive: Part I.” Of course, I might not be the best judge of that. Maybe I’ll need some beta readers to weigh in.

Infinity

Since my last post I have submitted over 20 book and short story submissions. I am hoping to get my latest short story, “Infinity,” accepted this year. It was a piece I originally wrote for a short story contest on Vocal, which had a $6,000 prize.

The winner was a story that wasn’t even a story. It was an existential poetry piece and after that I decided that the Vocal judging system wasn’t for me. I won’t get $6,000 for “Infinity” anywhere but I’ll take any publication it can get. I hope that another credit can get me closer to my goal of getting an agent for “Hazard” this year.

Alive complete

I completed a rewrite of my third book, Alive. It is a werewolf story that takes place on a fictional medieval island, where a young black man is recruited into an order by a woman who wants to create a black supremacist society.

The third book was the second project that I ever received a manuscript request for. The agent rejected the manuscript pretty quickly saying the pacing “did not quite work” for her. That motivated me to join a critique group, where the teacher was able to help flesh out that critique. I have since done a rewrite of my first, fifth and third book. The fifth is the one I’m shopping around the most, so I hope I can get an agent for it this year.

Alive is a two-part series, so I may start on a rewrite of the second part later this year, or do a edit/rewrite of my sixth book, “Memory Catcher” (which was spawned from a short story I wrote).

Alive Update

I’m 49,000 words into Alive now. I’ve been able to stick to 1000 words daily most of the days since I set that goal. Even though I have fallen off some days I still have got more writing done than if I was aiming for 500 words, which was the goal. I’m still on track for a draft by year-end. Afterwards, I may start with another project that’s been on my mind for a little bit. Maybe I’ll tackle the new idea as a short story first.