Busy Busy Busy

It’s been a strange three quarters of the year – and oh my God how exciting it has been!

From starting the year thinking I wouldn’t do anything new – only work through my Year Of a Thousand Projects – to submitting and querying novels, receiving two contracts, being picked up by a new publisher, I’m now finding myself contacting famous authors asking for quotes.

Honestly, I love it!

At the start of the year I made a plan: I didn’t have any major projects that took up my time, nothing that was about to be released, no urgent deadlines, so of course I figured it was a good time to start something entirely new. That’s reasonable, right? Then I realized that a much better plan was to go over all the half-finished stuff I had lying around. First drafts, things that weren’t properly finished or things that needed to be revise, that kind of stuff. Get everything up to a certain standard, know what I mean?

So I did that, for the first 6 months. I occasionally wrote and submitted the odd short story here and there, but most of the time I worked on old stuff I had lying around, dividing my time between four different projects of varying proportions that I wrote ages ago and left in a drawer (read: the cloud) to simmer.

Then, right before the summer (I think?) I sent them off to place they needed to go: some to publishers and presses I knew were interested in certain genres and formats, and some to editors and contacts I have that I wanted to have a look at my work. I got one rejection pretty fast, and didn’t hear anything about the two other ones. Then I kept going with the fourth, massive project, the one I knew needed A LOT of work. I’m still chipping away at it occasionally.

Then, in September, within a couple of days of each other, those two projects got picked up. Publishers wanted them! I received the contract the week after, and signed them both on the same day.

Which brings us to now: I’m still chipping away at Massive Project No. 4, I’m still writing the occasional short story, but now I’m doing edits and revisions for one speculative novella that will be released by Inked In Gray next year, and I’m doing a whole myriad of things for my new Norwegian YA adventure. Getting new head shots, planning the cover, writing blurbs, bios and synopsis, and organizing the pre-orders.

At the same time, I’m also being published in the 42 Anthology by BAMWrites in November, anthology consisting of 1764 individual 42-word micro stories! (I actually won a prize for the best story in my category, yay!) and I’m in the early stages of collaborating with Something Or Other Publishing on an exciting horror anthology.

Which brings me to this blog post: Busy busy busy.

But honestly, I love it! I like being busy, and I love having all the routines around me. There’s something very rewarding and motivating about having specific deadlines and things that need to be done, know what I mean? Sure, I like working independently and setting my own schedule, at the same time, it’s easy to be distracted and postpone things when no one’s expecting anything form you. So yeah, there’s a lot of new things happening, and though it’s fun, I won’t lie and say it’s not making me a bit nervous. But what can you do, other than jump into it headfirst without giving it a second thought? That’s what I’m doing at least!

What have you been up to lately? Any cool new projects? Finally finalizing that ancient manuscript you’ve been chipping away at for ages, or did you just start something new and exciting? Let me know in the comments!

As always, I’d appreciate it immensely if you’d care to check out my books! You can find all my novels and short stories right here. If you’re into crime thrillers I’d recommend my The Columbus Archives series, starting with The Consequence of Loyalty. If you prefer psychological horror, then go for At The Gate. I’ve you prefer short form, there’s also fantasy, science-fiction and horror short stories.

Trey Stone’s Books

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