I'm Back. Probably.

Wow. Clearly I had a burst of web energy back in 2023. I pushed and I set up this site and started adding content. The problem is, once I finished, I kinda felt like it was finished. I have limited time to do creative work between bill-paying work and three kids. I figured best not to waste it writing reviews and blog posts. Write books. Draw pictures. Study techniques.

But... I have a different view now. I am going to use this site as a real blog. Not a marketing blog or SEO posts designed to get traffic, just... an author's journal. More of a theraputic thing, tracking thoughts and progress.

So. As I mentioned in that last post in Sept. '23 I moved on from querying The Opening Move to writing a new book, untitled story codename Magical Wolf. Since then I've also been drawing more and completed the illustrations for Greenleaf, a picture book about a teddy bear who lives on Saturn. I read more books about writing, listened to podcasts, went through an online writing conference. After a year or so away from The Opening Move I went back and took another look at it and revised it considerably.

I sent two queries for Greenleaf, one received an immediate rejection. My wife said a story about a teddy bear on Saturn might be a bit too out there. This was another one of those stories born out of drawing whatever we imagined with my youngest daughter. My wife liked some of my other picture book ideas much better. I read through them and choose three to polish a bit. I plan to send those to an agent on Sept. 1 (she asks that you send her PB queries including three complete manuscripts).

I also revised the query letter for Opening Move, now a YA speculative story titled Press Here To Start. My oldest daughter, an avid YA reader who has never finished reading any of my books before (what a downer!) read Press Here To Start and was hooked from the start. I've learned a lot since '23 when I moved on from it. So I sent out two query letters for the new version.

About Magical Wolf, (sigh). I'm going to finish that one, but I am seeing a trend in my writing. Too often I start with an idea that is a little crazy, make it crazier, then start building a story around it. The logical side of my brain feels to need to build a world that explains why this craziness is possible. And that just leads to layers of complications. I am beginning to think that story structure-wise this is not the best way to write a story. It might be backwards, and might part of the reason I've gotten so many rejections. How many?

I've been writing all my life, but 'got serious' twice. Once in 2000, but my computer crashed and I lost the book I was working on. I didn't start again till 2009. And I haven't stopped since. Finished my first book in 2012, got around 50 rejections, then self-published it. Learned a lot, finished another book. This time I held on through exactly 101 rejections before I set it aside. Third book... are you ready for this? 317 rejections. I really believed in that book.

So that brings us to Magical Wolf. I have to do some real thinking. Maybe strictly follow the rules. I know tons of rules, I've read tons of books on writing, listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts and classes over the years, all on top of, you know, actually reading a lot of books for fun. I know the rules, but I've never strictly followed them. They exist because of certain concepts and principles and if one studies and understands -- I thought -- one could creatively adapt them to write stories that are fresh, unexpected. New, not formulaic.

Maybe I will follow the rules next time. It might be too late for Magical Wolf :-/ Never too late to learn.