Revisions

I've made the remaining edits to the manuscript that my first readers indicated, and submitted it to the workshop for this Thursday. The most extensive edits were to the last two chapters, so those are what I submitted. Both chapters are longer than before, as I had to fix and explain some aspects that were contrary to common sense. Thanks, Workshop!

Currently, the story just tops 99,000 words.

Struggling with a title. The book to me has always been The Weaver's Children. But that won't yield results from a Google search for RH. I suppose I should just call it Robin Hood. The Ballad of Robin Hood. "Ballad" gives it a softer sound, appropriate for my main character, and ties in with the historical RH ballads, the ballads Tuck recites within the story, and the ballads that Allan will sing later.

Hmm, let me sleep on that, and run it by the workshop.

I'd thought of submitting Dragonlord, but my revisions should be seen by someone, so they get what they get. I've worked quite a bit on the query letter. There's a professional workshop in Kansas City in March, and I'm trying to decide if I can afford to go, and what to do with the dogs for the two nights I'd be gone. I'd have to dispose of them early on Friday, then head to KC, stay overnight, workshop on Sat, stay overnight again, then drive back and pick up the dogs Sunday. Maybe I can split them up among various hosts.

Query letter

I've been through three drafts of my query letter -- feels like I'm nearly there. The goal is to introduce the protagonist and antagonist and to summarize the story up through the first big crisis and resulting choices. What are the consequences of each choice; what's at stake?

The target audience for this letter is an agent, the person who will decide whether or not to try to sell my story to a publisher. The purpose is to get the agent to want to read the manuscript.

A query letter is remarkably hard to write!

New year, new goals

It's been a very long time since last I posted. Much has changed; much remains the same.

My biggest news is that I have finished a novel. It took two years of increasingly intensive labor, but I wrapped up the final chapters in early December, in time to get feedback before year's end. The feedback was very useful, and I've been rewriting. My goal for the next two months is to finish revisions, write a good query letter and synopsis, and identify potential agents. There's a writer's conference in Kansas City in late March that I'd like to attend. Others, also within driving distance, are scheduled later in the year, but I need to keep moving forward.

And I need to begin the next one!