Drawing from the Well
Queries: 69 (+11)
Rejections: 51 (+2 but probably more)
Third Eighth
Chapter 34/91
Scene 215/508 – 42.3%
Word Count: 51,946 (+26,401) – 42.1%
A lot has happened with my writing and querying in the last MONTH since I posted. I’ve wanted to post many times recently but haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve been so focused on trying to hit my writing goals that this poor blog has fallen by the wayside. With November behind me, though, I can look back and see that I improved over October. I was hoping to improve more BUT what can you do? Oh, right, work harder this month (that’s not going well right now either). That said, I’m excited about my writing and ready to get back into it. And the querying? Yeah, those 11 queries mark the end of my journey. It’s all out there now. 2020 may be a whole new adventure.
Filling the Well
Water: A History: 100%! (Book 34/25 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
The Plastic Magician: 100%! (Book 35/25 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
The Raven King: 100%! (Book 36/25 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
Opal: 100%! (Book 37/25 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
The Bible: 95%
Fahrenheit 451: 68%
The Emperor’s Blades: 43%
Yeah, a lot has happened here too. All of these books were great and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I think my favorite of the four finished above was The Plastic Magician. Charlie Holmberg continues to prove to be one of my favorite authors and I intend to dive into more of her books in ’20. For now, trying to finish the year strong but the last few weeks have not been encouraging. We’ll see if I can crack 40 before year’s end. To that end, Fahrenheit 451 is giving me serious 1984 vibes (never thought a sentence like that would come out of my mouth/fingers) and The Emperor’s Blades is a long but thrilling adventure; loving that so far.
Polishing the Well
November is our busiest month with my wife’s business. This year it’s bleeding right into December too which is great! We’ve met and served so many lovely people. For now, I’m looking forward to things slowing down just a little bit as we move into the holiday season. But, we do have one other exciting announcement…
My wife opened a new office! It’s got lots of space and is going to work perfectly for where she wants to take things. I’m so IMMENSELY proud of her and can’t wait to see what’s next for Perfect Day Productions.
Well Chat
The Well is Getting a Makeover
It’s been quite a while, huh?
This is my longest blog draught all year. So what happened and how am I going to fix it?
What happened was that I went into the writing cave and focused all my energy on that. I’ve seen a lot of success, having written ~25k words since my last blog post, but the blog has obviously languished. On top of that, I’ve been doing a lot of research into potentially self-publishing as I try to explore every option.
In short, my focus was elsewhere.
As I look forward to 2020 and The Next Big Thing, I realized how much I’ve neglected the blog and how important it is to me both personally and as part of my platform. One of the issues I’ve run into previously is finding a sufficient topic that I feel I have the experience to cover. If I don’t have something in mind as soon as I wake up, I can struggle and stall on the Well Chat. That’s not a good feeling. On top of that, it takes A WHILE to write the Well Chat if I have to come up with the topic and I haven’t thought about it for days in advance.
How do I intend to fix this?
Well, the big thing is that The Well is getting a makeover. I still want to report to you all my writing, reading, and personal results, but the Well Chat is mostly going to go away. I’m going to expand the Drawing section substantially to focus on my writing journey. I’m not an expert at writing and have no experience (yet) with publishing. So I’m going to focus on what I know and that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to also shift the blog to twice weekly. I haven’t decided on the days yet but I will get a second blog out this week while I figure out the proper cadence.
I apologize for the HUGE delay on this and hope that these changes will fit well. Obviously, anything can change but I’m hoping this will deliver a better cadence of content for everyone. Thanks for sticking with me. Happy Hump Day!
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG