Still waiting to hear back from Agent 5. Nice and nerve wracking. I have stuff planned for Agent 6, because that's how these things roll, but it is exhausting always planning for the next failure. I would love for the novel to be picked up and go somewhere. I am sure the book will do well once it hits the market with just the right push. Until then, it's keep busy and keep from going insane.

To that end Written In The Body is helping. I have already written more than the length of the first 3 books. If I go over 165k that take me over two other books. So a nice big epic Hermione and Ginny novel all because I had an idea I wanted to play with. But isn't that usually the way?

So I keep working on that and on the second book of the Tegan series. Fun stuff to be sure. Here's hoping.

Finally heard back from agent 4 and thus on to agent 5. I believe I have mentioned how much this part sucks. But anyway, for this agent I need to submit a synopsis of the story which is the whole thing in about 2 pages (at least for them). Some of these are longer and some are a touch shorter but OY... this is not easy. So I am trying to make this work, condensing 250+ pages into 2. It is a thrill a moment. Hopefully I can do a good job of it. Here's hoping.

On the other hand, Written in the Body is keeping me busy and moderately stress free, as it is a fun story and I am getting good practice in. Some really nice work being done in that one. Also working on the second book of the Tegan series, but that is slow going as things are still falling into place there. So much fun...

Already on to Agent 4, waiting to hear back from them. Have I mentioned how much fun this is? The Harper Voyager submission got turned down, but that's okay as things were more in the publishers favor than mine. I know it often is but even still I was not keen on some of the things in there. I took the chance and did not get there. So it goes. But the new revised first chapter is much better so that helps. The work i never really done, just taken away from you before you hurt yourself.

Here's hoping that I hear back soon one way or the other so I can either get moving onto 5 or move forward with trying to get signed.

Well, as is the norm, agent one said thank you for playing. I guess I can move on to agent two. Since then I have also submitted it to the Harper Voyager open submission and I got an essay done that is going into a book by McFarland. So that's cool. Go me. This will certainly help with things.

I am a bit distressed but I also know that this is the way of the publishing world. Someone will fit with the novel and then everything will take off. Step by step.

So it goes.

Well, off to adjust the query letter and send things off to agent two.

Sent of my novel to an agent. Here's hoping it get's picked up. If not, thus begins the vast round robin of rejection/submission that is the publishing world. I believe in this story and I know that self-publishing is not going to get me where I want to go with this story. I want a decent editor to help me improve the story and all the other benefits that signing with a publishing house can get you. I really do want to produce the best story that I can. So, here's hoping that it is a short quest rather than a prolonged quest, as those are exhausting.

Wish me luck.

Well, it is finished after over 3 years. The Ranma fan fic is done and in the box. So read responsibly and enjoy. I had a lot of fun getting there and it helped me get better at a number of different techniques. I like it when that happens.

Finished writing The Amulet of Adventure, or rather doing the first edit. As an additive writer, I added about 19k to the text and am now at about 74k total length. Not bad for a YA novel.

I am working on plotting the second book, while I am waiting for feedback from several test readers and betas. It would be nice if they did nothing else but read it and gave me feedback, but like that is practical. I want good feedback that I can work with and I know that takes time. The second book is going to be interesting because of introducing a bunch of new characters, and several fun areas of conflict that run through several books. It gets crazy.

Other than that, I am also working on Whatley stuff, Ranma and a new Kigo fic set in the TUIG verse. So, there is other writing going on as well. The neverending flow of words.

As part of my research for the YA novel series I am writing, I got the Leonardo Da Vinci Complete Paintings and Drawings book. Hardback it is roughly $750 and is beautiful. Seeing as I am poor I decided to check Amazon to see if there were other options. The paperback copy of this thing is $20, for the same book, same number of pages, everything. Where is the bad here? This is incredible insane and if you like Da Vinci and his work to buy this book, because dude, Da Vinci but two, selling a paperback copy at that cost compared to hardback is amazing and to be encouraged. Taschen, the publisher, really did some beautiful work with this and I can get behind anybody who does work like this.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go and squee now!

So, after a long while I am back in school. Right now I am busy juggling classwork, housework, loving my wife, having a life and writing. It isn't easy. Right now I have only worked on Tegan maybe once every two weeks, at best. This won't do. I do know that once I get a better feel for the school and the pattern it presents that I will be fine, but right now I feel like I am running triple time just to keep up. Mostly that has to do with study time.

One class, that is online was not clear on how to get to it so I was a week behind on the work and lucky me had to catch up on all that work and take two quizzes in two days. I did it, but it sucked. How that I am caught up there I am hoping that I can figure out a good pattern for studying and not have this issue rise up again. I am sure I can do it, but woah...

Naturally this has stifled a lot of my creativity. Criminal Confession was the most creative thing I have done in a while, a my life has been a touch crazy the last month or so. I am even surprised I wrote it, let alone won the kimshego contest with it. I saw some of the other work and was hoping I could have at least made third. Needless to say I was very surprised by winning. I do have some self-esteem issues about my writing.

Well, gonna check some more stuff online but since it is a Federal holiday here in the US I think I am going to write instead of getting ahead in my classes. I can do that tomorrow.

Well the Tegan story is going well. I am almost at 31K words and that is good for only 12 chapters. The word count will go up when I go back through, but for a first draft, that's not too bad. This seems to indicate that I should easily make it over the 50K mark and possibly to the 60-70K range, as there is a lot of stuff crammed into the later chapters.

I have to do some layouts for the field guide, to add to the story but that can wait for the first rewrite. Whee!

What I think is interesting is how much writing I have done for the Whateley Academy Universe. I am at over 300k words with several characters. That is the most I have ever done on any character or setting. Being a collaborative world is nice as some of the details I might have missed are already there for me. The stories are a lot of fun and I am a fan as well as an author. I love reading the stuff from other authors.

I mean... I was just pondernating over that.

Writing away on another story posted on Big Closet/ Top Shelf. It seems to be going over well and I like that. I am also juggling several other stories that are working their way out. We will see where that leads.

Happy Holidays everyone!!

This year has had more than its fair share of suck but now it is nearly over. I hope everyone has a great holiday of their choice because you have probably earned it.

There is too much damn life going on for me and I can't focus enough to write. No ideas are really doing anything and that is really distressing. I am hoping that I can get past this and get back to work as I have a number of unfinished stories I need to attend to and a number of stories waiting to take life. I hate it when this happens.

Wow... been a while since I did one of these. I guess I had nothing to say. The difference now? Nothing.

I still have nothing to say but I figured that I wanted something new to look at on my front page.

So... I have been busy mixing original work with my FanFic and that has been interesting. I mainly have my hand in Ranma and Kim Possible, which really sounds dirty now that I think about it. But anyway, my original stuff runs all over the place, from Contemporary Fiction to Fantasy to some Sci-fi. A nice broad range of interests.

So far one of my favorites has been Against the Greater Dark, a fantasy story where the culture the main character comes from is what would happen if you mix the Navajo, Samurai, Ninja, and Taoist ethos and blend until frothy. The character is awesome and hysterical, at least to me, and is having fun trying to deal with people from a Teutonic culture. Talk about conflicting worldviews.

I hope that one sells, as it is a fun story.

However it is unfinished. I am trying to fix that while I edit something else. Whee!!

I love to read. I am sure this is a huge surprise to all of you and you would never have considered such a think, but shush.

I love to read and so when browsing my webcomics I came across Sailor Ranko by burgerbecky. I like Ranma and thought I would give it a try, even though Sailor Moon made me twitch. I really enjoyed it and I thought the characters were fun. I read more of her fics and now I am reading Sailor Moon, because I liked Sailor Ranko. I almost feel as dirty as I did when I got into Kim Possible.

I would feel better if I still despised it, but I don't hate it.

OMFG! I heart Joss like a hearting thing that hearts. I watched the whole series in one sitting yesterday and had all the reality screwing joy in watching everything unfold. Just when you thought it had gotten as messed up as it could, BAM! something else went twisty. The thirteenth episode was well beyond wrong and a joy to watch. I mean seriously... WTF Mate?

In a lot of ways this show works out better than Firefly. Firefly started off really strong but it sort of plateaued... which is fine as it did plateau somewhere great. But the strange and weird of Dollhouse just kept growing.

I can't wait for Season 2.

So I have been busy today sending off stories pretty much all over the web. It's been fairly crazy and I am looking forward to the comments. I hope they are decent, as very few things are worse for an artist than really sad and pathetic comments. I still appreciate but they don't do it for me, if you know what I mean.

Anyway... back to the salt mines.

Okay... this has been amusing me. It's a lot of fun and just cracks me up.

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