I'm Back

For real, I swear. Until my next blogging hiatus. But with four works in progress, a volunteer non-profit charity biz, a new jewelry biz (very new), a new job for the first time in 3 years, continued chronic pain, exercises to keep up on, chronic migraines, two cats to try and get to stop killing each other, and a sick/dying parent, it's hard to keep up on the blogging. But I want to blog. I want to do all the things.

As is tradition for when I've taken a blogging hiatus, I will discuss my current writing projects. Because that's how it's done. More about all that other stuff later. And it's a lot.

Four works in progress.

My first priority: "Pieces" A contemporary mystery with light paranormal elements. It's in the final stages. I've gotten good feedback from drafts 2 and 3 from different sets of beta readers and am working on the 4th draft, which is more editing than rewriting. Finally! When you've moved from constant rewrites into actual edits, you've gotten somewhere. Because I said so. I think it may be done by mid-year, maybe sooner. It's hard to say. But I'm super excited. I plan to enter it into some contests and try to attend some writing conferences this year to meet with agents in person. I think this one is the most commercially-marketable of all my stories, so I'm definitely going to try the traditional route with it. I think I will be in fully querying-swing by Fall, definitely winter.

Priority 2 is "New Year's Revolution" (Formerly Bloody New Year and Vampiric Vanguard. Still thinking of using Vampiric Vanguard as a series title.) This is an urban fantasy/paranormal/post-apocalyptic novel. It's my first baby, and has therefore seen many rewrites/edits. Somewhere between 7 and 10. But I've discovered the solution: it's not a three book series, as originally planned. It's four. The first book needs to be cut in half. I feel confident about these changes. My goal is to have this ready to be queried (again) by the end of the year. It's doable. I've queried agents for this in the past and gotten roughly 30 rejections (go me!). I'm aiming for the 3 digits. When your number of rejections hit the hundreds, you know you've made it. I plan to query some agents, but mostly small/indie publishers.

These two books will keep me busy most of the year, but I have not forgotten my other two children. I began my fourth novel "Eternal" in November (NaNoWriMo 2017). While I got it past 50k, I did not complete the rough draft, but that's okay. I know where the story is going and felt like continued work on the sloppy rough draft wasn't productive. I don't know when I'll be ready to work on it again, but I feel like I'll be ready to write a solid draft two when the time comes. Oh yeah, it's a speculative romance. I know, I'm writing a romance. Who would've thought? While I won't be writing on it for a while, I will be reading in preparation: lesbian romance novels, stories that take place in the 80s, and stories that feature mixed race characters.

Last but not least is "Caribou Canyon" later called "City of Secrets". This is my second baby. I love it, but don't know where to go from here. It's a YA paranormal, and the story is too big. There are 3 MCs, and I fell in love with all of them and gave each character many subplots. The polished first draft rounded out at 250k words. Yes, you read that correctly. I started releasing it as a serial on Jukepop, but that didn't pan out. Then I started releasing it on my blog, but I'm not sure that's what I want to do with it. I think I'm going to remove it from my blog and set it aside in my mind, but I definitely want to continue it. At this point, I would likely polish it up and self-publish it, maybe in installments.

Okay, so those are my writing projects. I'm having a busy 2018, and that's just about the writing. So many other things are happening, many of them painful and trying and sometimes I just want to curl up and sleep, and keep sleeping, and keep on sleeping. But writing is my passion, my art, my life. I will take all of this crap and funnel it into my stories.

Get ready world. They are coming.

NaNoWriMo Time

It's that time of year again already! I'm participating in NaNoWriMo for sort of the third year in a row, but really it's only my second time. The idea is that you write a rough draft of a brand new novel in November. Last year I began the 2nd draft of Pieces, which I wrote during 2015 NaNo. This year I'll be doing another new one, an idea that only just came to me in August. Usually my ideas marinate in my head for several years before I put them to paper, so we'll see how this goes.


Here's what I'll be writing this year:

Speculative lgbtq romance that takes place over the course of 30+ years. 

25 yo Vera is a wild, free-spirited bisexual writer who is celebrating one year of sobriety. She just moved to Bloomington with her best friend, savior, and sponsor, Stuart, who is starting medical school. Estranged from her family due to tragedy, Stuart is all Vera has. She spends time on campus, working on her first novel. 

18 yo Ember is the daughter of a white man and a black woman. Plagued by the question "what are you?" her whole life, she feels like she doesn't belong. Add that to the fact that she is an artist living in a family of intellectuals, and a closet lesbian, she doesn't know who she is or where she fits.  She is attending IU Bloomington and majoring in business, though it isn't what she wants. She pursues her art and sticks to herself. 

Ember and Vera witness a horrifying and uncanny murder on campus. Both women are drawn to the scene of the crime. Vera is writing a horror novel: she likes the ambience. Vera also likes the place to go and think. Stuart has unexpectedly relapsed, and Vera doesn't know how to help him. Ember likes the quiet of the place: most of the other students stay away. The two women meet and bond, sharing their lives with one another and falling in love. The more they get to know one another, they begin to realize that things they thought were quirks, might be more than that. Vera starts to realize that something isn't right: about Stuart's relapse or about Ember. 

The women are forced to make a painful decision that may affect the future of their relationship, and Stuart's life. 

And here's a little collage I put together in order to stop myself from cheating and starting early. 

If you're also a NaNo person, find me on the site here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/becky9637

Happy writing!