I was snowed in again this weekend, so I took advantage of the time to work on my writing–specifically, to figure out what to work on next. Things have been kind of crazy these past few weeks, so I haven’t written very much, but now that I’ve settled into a new routine, it should be much easier to get back to writing again.
The plan is to finish Star Wanderers first, before April. After taking a couple weeks off, I think I’m ready to get back into that project and write through the wall that I’d run up against earlier. Besides, Stars of Blood and Glory needs more time; it’s only been about a month since I finished the last draft, and that’s not long enough to get a fresh perspective.
I’m a little past the midway point on Star Wanderers–around the middle of part III–so it should be about 20k to 25k before the whole novel is finished. I wrote the first part in a little less than two weeks, so three weeks should be enough to finish at least the rough draft. The main thing is to write every day and get some momentum going, which shouldn’t be too hard–I’m still really excited about this project.
As you may recall, I submitted Part I to Writers of the Future. From lurking on the forums, it appears that the first round of rejections and honorable mentions are starting to come out. I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’m still in the running. Since no news is good news at this point, part of me hopes that I don’t hear back for a while–but the other part wants to hear back soon, so I can go ahead and publish it!
Here’s the current plan:
- Finish the rough draft of the complete novel.
- Publish Part I at $1.50 (free to newsletter subscribers).
- Get feedback for part II, revise and publish.
- Repeat for Parts III and IV, with one or two months between each release.
As a teaser, here’s the cover that I made when I was back in Massachusetts. I decided to go with some NASA / Hubble images, at least for the first release. Here it is:
Everything is ready to go; I just need to hear back from Writers of the Future before I can publish it. I’m going to wait until the rest of the novel is finished, though, just to be safe. Expect to see it sometime in April (unless it’s a finalist for WOTF–hey, you never know).
Enough for now; I’d better get back to writing. See you around!
