Project Shadow Update

This will be a shorter post–work has interfered with both my personal life and writing life, and I’m struggling to catch up.

PROJECT SHADOW

I’ve completed the 1st scene (out of 3), but I plan on the 2nd scene being the longest.  I have a roadmap (loose outline) for the whole story, now I just have to find the time to write it as the deadline is looming (2/15/16).

I am off on President’s Day, but I’d really like to have it done by Friday (2/12) so that I can give it to my Beta readers.  Two scenes in one week, though, is a tough ask.  We’ll see what happens.

SUBMISSIONS

I’ve been more conscientious about submitting.  I’ve made a list of publishers/markets for the stories (about 5-8 markets) and I have ALL my stories out to 1 market at a time.  When any stories come back with a rejection (3 this week), I wait until Saturday night or Sunday night, look at the guidelines for the next market on the list, prep the submission, and send it.  When I run out of markets, I’ll simply make a list of 5-8 more.

I’m also trying to be more conscientious about following up with markets that have had my stories beyond their stated time.  I don’t want to pester the markets, but if they had it longer than a specified time and they say to ask, then I’m probably not going to wait until my buffer time (which was a long 120 days, or 4 months) before I inquire about it.)

DIANE DUANE – GAMES WIZARDS PLAY

Finally, one of my favorite authors has released a new book this week.  It is called Games Wizards Play and it is Bk. 10 in her Young Wizards Series (which is my favorite series and one I discovered as a child).

Now this is book 10 in the series, so if you haven’t read any of the books, I would NOT advise you to start here.  Rather, start with book 1, So You Want To Be a Wizard.  It starts off quite a bit as a children’s/YA book, but “grows up” pretty quickly and the resolution and ending is one of the strongest that I’ve ever read.

Like all series, I like some books more than others, but I spent all of last year collecting copies of all 9 books to add to my classroom library.  This year, I think I’m going to try to collect them all for my own personal library–starting with this one!