Katherine Villyard's Blog, page 14

First draft of my novel complete!

I have a large swath of text with characters, plot, setting, and a beginning, middle, and end. It’s currently 52,489 words, which is (as you know, Bob,) too short. My writer’s group warned me repeatedly that it would be too short, but I’m not that concerned. I think I can add 20,000-25,000 words in revision easily.

Why my novel is too short:

I usually write short stories, despite certain critique partners past opening each short story critique with “I’m not going to bury the lede here: this is a novel.” (Hi! I’m grinning and waving at you!) Critique partners present kept saying things like “you’re burning fuel at an extraordinary rate…” Yes, I know, that’s valid, but… My first drafts have a tendency to be light on sensory description. In fact, my zero drafts read like stage plays or screenplays, with dialog and basic blocking. I was a theater major, once upon a time, and wanted to be a screenwriter at one point. I introduced an important character 3/4 of the way in and need to retrofit him in.

Hi, my name is Katherine and I am a pantser. (“Hi, Katherine!”)

ANYWAY.

It’ll be fine.

(Also, those other stories were all under 10,000 words and I didn’t feel like I had 65,000 words more to say about them!)

Short Story Collection things

If you would like to read an advance copy of the collection, you can do it at Booksprout or Book Sirens.

If you just want a free copy, there’s a Goodreads Giveaway going on now!

That is all.

It’s not time-wasting! ;)

Creating my characters in the Sims 4? Rolling them up as Dungeons and Dragons characters? RESEARCH.

(Sadly, I’m not actually PLAYING them.)

Coming Soon!

Love Stories, a collection of previously published and unpublished short fiction. Expected date of publication: October 31.

The Dark Wedding

Visual references for my novel in progress

I have a Pinterest where I’m putting up visual references/inspirations. <3

I admit I got the idea from my sister, who has a board for each individual character. I have an overall board with sub-boards for characters. I don’t think there are any spoilers! but here’s a sample; a photo by Yvette van der Velde:

Interested in my novel in progress?

I have a Pinterest where I’m putting up visual references/inspirations. <3

I admit I got the idea from my sister, who has a board for each individual character. I’m not there yet; maybe in the future. I don’t think there are any spoilers! but here’s a sample; a photo by Yvette van der Velde:

Coming soon…

I have a book cover, which will be revealed soon. I mean, I haven’t officially paid yet, but I’ve approved it, so I don’t know if They want me to show it to you yet, but…

It’s my birthday!

This is how I celebrated my birthday two years ago, at the height of the pandemic.

Yes, in the Sims. Yeah. It was a whole thing. (That’s the Goth family, the BFF household, and some of my real life friends, Simified.)

This year, I… failed to plan. Previously, I would start sending out “Meet me at a restaurant!” invitations a month in advance. This year…?

Sigh.

This year, I scheduled this post because I’m busy busy. Happy birthday to me!

Anthology, baby!

I have a slew of stories that I haven’t been sending out. Seriously, one is from 2006 and I sent it various places for over a decade and got a lot of “I like this but it’s not for us” rejections. So I’m gathering up my sold stories and my unsold stories that I think don’t suck but are past their sell-by date, and will self-publish an anthology of them.

No, I’ve never self-published before, but the awesome Dave Schroeder has and is in my writer’s group and also has resources on his web site. Digging through those I found Jane Friedman’s page on the topic and have generally fallen down a rabbit hole, as is my way. So, an anthology is headed your way!

Also, my novel will eventually head your way, but that’s a whole other topic. Suffice to say that I’m feeling like I cover a lot of similar themes.

No, this isn’t the one that I posted about working on here a million years ago, that one is Trunk Trunk Baby. This one is… Here’s a cryptic teaser.