What I wrote this year:
1) WINTERLONG: paranormal romance (closed world, first person) winter-ghost-Inuit-near apocalyptic-haunted love story. Half plotted, half pantsed. Only 65K, which is a weird word count. Too long for a novella, too short for a novel. Submitted it for Golden Heart contest, but am thinking of fleshing out some of the minor characters and see if it feels better at 80K. If yes, will query. It’s my personal favorite piece of work I’ve done this year. Excellent world building and original, if I do say so myself. *Bows*
2) RUN DEVIL RUN: urban fantasy (closed world, first person) demons-magick-esoteric societies-Big Sur coastal California story about misplaced faith and trust. Mostly plotted, some pantsing. 84K. Queried, several agents reading partials/fulls. Love this project. Like, seriously love it. Sigh.
3) WITCH HUNT: urban fantasy (open world, first person) baroque-paranormal movie studio-firebombings-alt Atlanta-magick craziness. 85K. Barely plotted, mostly pantsed. I considered this my first real novel, and queried it with great hope. It got a ton of interest, fulls requested by several agents. A revision is still out there in the aether. Wish I wouldn’t have been so impatient to write it and submit it. Some great characters, but I now see what I did wrong.
4) GATHERING FIRE: a strange paranormal/urban fantasy/romance monstrosity (closed world, over-the-shoulder third person). 100K. Strictly plotted. My first attempt at writing and, unfortunately, querying. It shows. Teeming with adverbs and choppy sentences and supreme wish-fulfillment. Oh, and a community of Amish vampires. (Drops head in literary shame.)
5) MISC: One unfinished, untitled follow-up to Gathering Fire (50K), abandoned. One completed follow-up to WITCH HUNT called BLACK BIRD (87K).
All in all, that brings the total to just under 500K words logged this year. No one can accuse me of lacking discipline. Lacking patience? Well, I’m working on that. Right now, I’m following Lilith Saintcrow’s advice and putting WINTERLONG aside for a few weeks before tackling it again to get some perspective. Meanwhile, am in creative planning slash research frenzy for my next project–the concept of which is so mind-blowingly good that I’m 100% convinced that it will sell. Yes, it’s that damn good!
Of course, as one of thousands of unpublished writers trying to make it during one of the worst possible times in publishing history, if I didn’t blindly believe in myself, I wouldn’t have the stamina to keep up this crazy game without giving up.
