The end of January is nigh, and I can’t quite believe we’re 1/12 down on 2020 already. I was going to write a post at the end of 2019 reflecting on the year and talking about my 2020 goals, but that seems a bit late now! Plus I’ve struggled a bit this year with ‘goals’. I realised that towards the end of last year, all of my goals were writing related. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing, but since writing is not just my passion but also my job, that meant I had nothing but work goals. I hadn’t set myself any personal or fitness goals for the second half of the year – and I watched my fitness shoot right off out the window thanks to a repetitive strain injury I got in my knee after too much hiking and bike-riding in Canada back in July.
So! This year I’ve set not just writing goals, but fitness and personal goals too. Now, on to the book updates!
Book Updates
Eat Pray Shag
It is finished!! Hooray! At least, the main bulk of the thing is finished. There’s still a bunch of work to be done on tweaking and editing, but all the structural work is done, which I find can be the hardest thing. This was basically the third draft of the book (I wrote a post recently called ‘How long does it take to write a book?’ if you want to know more about the different drafts), and I’m pretty happy with this one.
The next steps will be a final read-through this week where I’ll do things like fix the timeline (i.e. in chapter eleven it was Tuesday, but in chapter 12 it’s suddenly Sunday – WTF?), make sure all the through-plots have been established properly, and also make sure each scene is as good as I can make it. Then, this weekend, I’ll send it off to my beta-readers and hope they don’t come back with any glaring problems that I totally missed! After I’ve incorporated their feedback, the manuscript will be off to my copy-editor for final edits. Yay!
I’m also expecting some cover design options to come through from my cover designer very soon, so it should only be a few weeks until I have a final book cover for this.
Kalileia
Now that I’ve finished drafting Eat Pray Shag, I can finally give myself some time to fix up my Kalileia manuscript. I’ve entered this one into the inaugural HarperCollins Matilda Prize for kids & YA books, but I’m not holding out much hope for that due to (a) my book is not set in Australia and (b) I didn’t have time to rewrite the first few chapters before submitting it, and I know from agent feedback that chapter one isn’t punchy and exciting enough. So! Hopefully in the next month I can get it fixed up and start submitting it to agents again. But I’m going to be very careful about not dedicating too much time to this book, because it’s now time to start working on …
Laura the Explorer Book 3
Yes! The series will continue! Now that book 2 is so close to being finished, I need to make a solid start to book 3. I’ve already got a bunch of ideas and a very sketchy outline of what’s going to happen in this book, so it’s time to do some solid research, thinking, and plotting and try to come up with a workable outline. I’m going to try and get really detailed this time, and also make sure I know exactly who I want the new characters to be before I start so that I don’t waste my time writing it in the wrong direction.
Future Books
OMG I’ve got so many book ideas that it’s a bit scary. When will I get time to work on them all? It feels like this year is going to fly by so quickly. Must. Focus.
What I’m Reading
To be honest, I haven’t read anything that’s blown my socks off this month. I’m not sure if it’s just me feeling disappointed by books ( I won’t name them) or if it’s because I’m trying to spend less time reading and more time working on my own book. However, back in December I read Angel Mage by Garth Nix which was totally fantastic, I could barely put it down, and I very much hope there will be a sequel.
What I’m listening to
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern on Audible. I think this book would be a lot more enjoyable to be read than listened to, as I’m finding it very confusing! Unfortunately with audio books, it’s almost impossible to flip back and forth between chapters to cross-check information, like I’d do with any other rather convoluted book, so I just have to persevere through the confusion. Aside from that, it’s nicely written if a little frustrating (the main characters don’t understand how ‘the challenge’ works and neither does the audience!). But I’ve heard very good things about this book, so I’m persisting anyway.
Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash