Writing-related accomplishments: After a fairly lazy week I finally finished the first draft of the synopsis for ALL GREMLINS. There’s nothing quite like condensing a book to two pages to make it seem completely ridiculous. So first queries will be going out this weekend. Also did some reading for the YWC critique group meeting this weekend.

Real life stuff: Tried to catch the tiny kitten I saw running down the alley last week. The first attempt yielded nothing. The second attempt trapped an orange teenager, but the neighbors behind me claimed ownership so I let her out. Hopefully I’ll have better luck next week and can get everyone neutered/spayed before this becomes a major problem.

I’m also responsible for the neighbors’ chickens this week and I am ridiculously entertained by them.

Writing-related stuff accomplished: Got the next chapter of C3 sent out to YWC. Normally I submit two chapters, but the next chapter is a bit long so I held off. I think I may need to revisit the chapter breaks — I tend to not think about it after I’ve written the first draft, but I suspect I could do a better job if I worked on it a bit. I’ll work on the synopsis Tuesday.

In other parts of life, I went on my second geocaching expedition with the dogs and had just as much success as I did the first time. Hopefully I’m better at finding a literary agent.

Writing-related stuff accomplished: Worked on the synopsis, which involved rereading the book and noting all the plot and character events. Tomorrow I have to get the next two chapters of C3 out to YWC, but I think I can finish the synopsis as well.

My reward for getting all this done is getting back to the WIP not known as “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?”. I really need to find a new name for it…

Working on getting everything ready for agent queries for ALL GREMLINS. Tomorrow I’ll be writing a synopsis (which some agents want) and then I’ll hopefully be sending out the queries by Monday. Fingers crossed!

Spent most of the last week taking a break and then catching up on reading for the WF novel group. (Critiquing over 150k words is not a quick thing.)

Anyhow, today I added another 600+ words to the novel definitely never titled “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?”. Our magical probation officer is about to <spoilers deleted>.  Anyhow, it’s all heading toward a resolution. I think.

Tomorrow I will stop procrastinating and finalize my query for ALL GREMLINS (C1) with the plan of sending the thing out to the first round of agents within the week. It’s going to happen.

July is a distant memory, so it’s time to look at the goals for this here month. But first, an examination of how I did last month:

• Get 50,000 words into the novel that isn’t named “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?”
• Get the next two chapters of ALL BASILISKS (C3) revised and submitted to YWC.

Yes, I did all the things. Granted, that was pretty much just working on the new novel, but I’m giving myself a passing grade plus.

And now for August:

• Make one last pass through  ALL GREMLINS (C1) and then get the query out to the first batch of agents. (And then stop hyperventilating.)
• Get the next two chapters of ALL BASILISKS (C3) revised and submitted to YWC.
• Write the ending for the new novel (which still doesn’t have a name other than “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?”) and go back through and figure out what is missing.

That’s probably more than enough…

2,147 new words on the WIP, tipping me over the 50,000 mark that was my goal for the month. <sigh of relief> No snippets because everything at this point would pretty much be a spoiler.

Anyhow I have a few thousand more words to get to the end and then I need to go back and fill in some gaps. 55,000 does not a full-length novel make. Sub-plots are the answer here — there are a few of them that got dropped along the way. I may try fully plotting out the next thing I write and see how that works for me.

1,771 new words on the WIP this evening. Our magical probation officer is about to face off against the dragon for the first time. Large scale destruction will probably ensue. At the very least the city will have to build a new stadium.

WP is being silly about inserting html for the tracker, so here’s another picture of the graph from Camp NaNo. I’m a little behind, but I’m hoping to make that up this weekend.