New Respect for Publicists!

Well, after an additional week of fine tuning, I've released Of Avatars and Elementals to quite a few of my contacts. I think that my spirits, patience and hope are not completely out of order, for while I sent notice to around one hundred people and have had correspondence with perhaps a dozen, I am not discouraged in the least. Quite the contrary, I'm overly excited about the few who have taken a sincere interest both in reading and in helping me to find more of an audience. I suppose one could say that the difficult part is now over. The story is in the hands of readers. I am in the process of agent research. Now all I really have to do is sit and wait patiently for feedback...and resume work on Yamini's story, Of Shadow and Dissonance.

Attempt 1 status: failed?

Okay...so I never have been an expert at deadlines. My own, apparently, are no exception. But thankfully I don't consider it a complete failure. Not in the way that most of my "deadlines" have been utter busts over the years. This time, at the very least, I can say that I sat and grinded on my manuscript ALL. WEEKEND. LONG. From wake to crash I read, typed, retyped, read aloud until my eyes burned. And you know something? It felt good. It felt good to be motivated again.

For years this project has been with me, in the back of my mind and heart, waiting to show itself to the world. The characters screamed at me to finish their stories, to give them closure, and being their god I denied them...because I knew their futures. It didn't matter if the rest of the world knew. No one else appeared to give a damn anyway.

Now, even though I've sent word to close to fifty people and received maybe ten responses, I know that at least a few people are interested in taking a peek at the world I've created. As a god of my own little fictitious universe, this pleases me. I managed to hammer out a complete rewrite of the first chapter, sixteen pages, in two days. Might not sound like much, but coming from me, that is a lot. Especially considering that the second half of the book's final chapter, fifteen pages, took close to three months to finish.

What have I learned from this weekend? That I AM capable of being infused with motivation, after years spent dabbling and struggling to get a few lines down over the course of weeks. That there ARE people waiting for me to tie the pretty little bow around my life's work (yes, I consider 10 of 24 years my life's work). That I CAN outdo myself from time to time when I throw aside the limitations and work from freeflowing creativity. And that even though I may miss a deadline or two and disappoint a few friends, family and fans along the way, the end result can and WILL justify the delay. After a decade's worth of creating, fleshing out, designing, writing, dreaming, breathing, and ignoring my little fantasy world, I owe it to you, dear reader, to give you the best I have to offer.

Back to work. =)

The Summary Hitherto

So I figured I'd post the "dust jacket" plot summary, since I was silly enough not to include it anywhere online yet. (Silly writer. How are you supposed to accumulate readers?) Of course, the wording of the final synopsis will be up to the publisher and whatever copyrighter they decide to use. Until that dream becomes a reality, this will simply have to do. Bon appetit!

Handwriting has been outlawed. Nomads are not permitted to leave the city. Citizens walk the streets in fear, if at all. And the gate guards, once sworn to protect, strike fear into the hearts of passersby. When inmate Xearo Ta'Lorence becomes the first to escape the city of Rhevise, he and childhood friend Aeria aim to get as far from the province as possible. But when the fugitives discover that a raging covert war threatens to extinguish mankind, they realize their freedom has a steep price.

Exiled with limited resources, they must assemble their own team and pick up where the Rhevisean military left off. Only the enemy seems invulnerable to every traditional method of attack. Soon they realize humanity's last hope lies in Avatar, a mysterious wandering forest hermit with unusual druidic powers. From him they can learn to utilize mana, a once-abundant substance capable of channeling powerful magic. The only problem is that Avatar is not convinced humanity deserves to be saved at all.

Deadlines...this is new...

Even though this is the first official deadline I've set for myself (and any time I say "official" that just means I've said it to enough people to make my life hell if I don't follow through), it's still a daunting task to put a time cap on something. Perhaps the reason I did it is for practice, because I know that eventually...deadlines are going to be something I must perfect. Until now I've been very wishy-washy, saying things like, "Oh, I'll be done by the end of 2008," and then taking an additional six months to do just that. I can't count the times I've told myself and maybe a handful of others that I'd be done that weekend, that month, that year. Ugh.

Another reason, perhaps, is to keep myself motivated. Am I tricking my own mind? Possibly. But if it works, I can't really argue. The idea of having fifty people expecting something from me on a specific day and then not delivering churns my stomach. I couldn't handle disappointing that many people. And so here I am, glued to the couch for the second day in a row writing and rewriting.

To this day it amazes me how many transformations take place in a story over time. I think back to the original draft of Intrepid Earth that I wrote in high school and realize what absolute garbage the prose is to me, and at the time I was thinking, "Man! My writing can't get much better than this!" Boy, was I wrong. Now, writing the first chapter from scratch for the fourth time, I'm coming to understand something that I'm sure all published and successful authors struggle with: No piece is ever finished. It just reaches an acceptable point to give it to the world. I think forward to when my novel will be sitting on the shelves (nothing wrong with wishful thinking) and...sort of dread knowing that it will be final, that even if I go home and draft another version ten times better from scratch, that's it. It's on the shelves. Done.

*sighs* Best to make sure that the published version is kick ass to begin with, and then put it out of mind.

In the Beginning...

As of three days ago I've officially finished writing the meat and core of my novel, Of Avatars and Elementals, book 1 of my Intrepid Earth series. At this point I feel remarkably accomplished, and still there is so much left to figure out. So many places to go from here...so many things to do beforehand. Let me see if I can't flesh out a list of sorts, albeit out of order!

• I need to get ahold of Jami. She's the reason I bothered rewriting the story to begin with. I owe her a great deal of thanks for motivating me to draft a second version of the previously unfinished manuscript.
• I need to make a serious list of Sci-Fi/Fantasy literary agents. This will likely involve a bit of time at the book store and online.
• Draft query letters. Several of them. Then send out personalized queries to the above-specified agents in small waves until the list is depleted. Hopefully long before.
• Grow a spine. You'll need it to handle the impending criticism!
• Make a list of people to print hard copies for. There's a few.
• Calculate the hole in your wallet that will be made by having said copies printed.
• Get your ass back on CritiqueCircle.com, start uploading the polished version, compile those critiques with the feedback from work people and friends, and post on the forums.
• Grab a grammar handbook, spend time at Borders studying, or grind grammar webpages.
• Create an account on Blogspot focused on my writing endeavors and nothing else.
• Compile music for the unofficial "soundtrack" to the novel. This is for fun. =)

At least I got the blog account setup (obviously), so that's one step closer to my goal. If anything, I am happy to have the groundwork laid, a virtual "Square 1" if you will. Someday I hope to look back on this date with fondness and remember what it was like to be unpublished. Perhaps it can encourage other would-be writers. Maybe it will help to keep me motivated. Truth be told, I don't know how well this will work out, but I'm telling myself to stay on it. There are many bloggers I admire, and perhaps someday I will become admirable myself. Time will tell.