Progress was made on the novel definitely not called “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?”, but not as much as I’d hoped since I had to increase the background noise in my house to drown out the sound of fireworks. Hopefully I’ll get caught up tomorrow morning.

Writing accomplishment: Added 655 words to the WIP that’s definitely not titled “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?”. That’s not much, but Mondays are rough and anything above zero counts as a win.

July is here so it’s time to visit my goals.

From June:

• Address all the notes from the read-through on ALL ROCS (C2) and get it out to the WordForge novel group.
• Fix the ending of ALL GREMLINS GREAT AND SMALL (Curtains 1). (Carried over from May)
• Send out the query for ALL GREMLINS GREAT AND SMALL for proofreading. (This just means I have to get it in as close to final form as I can so someone else can do a quick check for typos.) This needs another editing round but it’s close.
  
• Revise and submit the first couple chapters of C3 (which does not yet have a name) to YWC.

I’m going to give myself a passing grade for June.

Now for July:

• 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.

Speaking of the first goal, in the novel definitely not called “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?” today our short, pudgy-bordering-on-Ruebenesque fifty-six year old magical probation officer talked a distraught porcupine out of jumping off a building and ended up handcuffed in the emergency room for her troubles.

A snippet:

“No Latin?” He sounded disappointed.
“I mean, if it makes you feel better I can throw some in.” Angela wove the spell of reversal while she talked, bumping it with a spark of power.
“Wait! I’m not going to end up naked, am I?”
Angela smiled. “Were you wearing clothes when you shifted?” At his nod she opened a hand. “Then you’ll have them when you shift back.” She raised her eyebrows. “Ready?”
“Okay.”
The spell glowed into being again. “Quod erat demonstrandum. Quid pro quo.” The net settled over him and she shoved a little more power into it, lighting up the strands. “Veni vidi vi—”
Then disaster struck.

Writing accomplishments: rewrote the penultimate chapter of ALL ROCS (C1). It’s much stronger now (yay!). There’s one more thread I need to pick up toward the end of the book and then I think it’s ready for another read-through to make sure I haven’t broken anything. If that’s good I’ll start sending out agent queries. Progress is being made.

Tomorrow I start working on the new novel starring a magical probation officer just trying to prove that power doesn’t always come from a show of strength. Someday it will have a much better title than “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?” — I’m leaning toward something like “Tuesday Yoga With The Snake Shifting Club”.

Writing accomplishments: Worked some more on ALL GREMLINS (C1). At this point I’m pretty happy with the first half. I don’t know if I can make all the changes to the second half that I need to by the end of the month, but I’m going to try. I also worked a little more on the outline for the July project (currently facetiously named “Dude, Where’s My Dragon?” — a real title is pending).

Writing accomplishments: Got a little bit done on smoothing out ALL GREMLINS (C1).

I might have gotten more done but the book club of geriatric citizens at the next table veered off topic and started discussing urban dictionary entries and I started laughing so hard I almost disgraced myself.

Writing accomplishments: Meeting of the YWC group in the morning (which included a critique of the first couple chapters of ALL BASILISKS (C3)) then I came home and slept off my doughnut hangover and didn’t do anything productive for the rest of the day.

Writing accomplishments: Critiqued the submissions for tomorrow’s YWC meeting. Got through about one chapter in ALL GREMLINS (C1) and added some physical descriptions of characters when they show up the first time. I suck at describing people. Clearly more practice is necessary.

Non-writing lesson of the day: Frozen pizza dough will thaw in a few minutes when left outside in the 107 F heat, but if the big dog eats it when it is out there, it still can’t be rolled out.

Writing accomplishments: Worked on ALL GREMLINS (C1) this evening. I’m about four chapters through — it definitely feels stronger with this round of edits, so that’s good.

Tomorrow I need to write up critiques for the other submissions in preparation for the YWC meeting on Sunday, but with any luck I’ll be able to get through another chapter or two of ALL GREMLINS.

Right now it’s nearly 10 PM and still over 85 F outside. I think I’ll try to convince the dogs that we already went for a walk and just go to bed…

Writing accomplishments: I’m back to working on ALL GREMLINS (C1) to finish smoothing out the plot issues. Now that I’ve had multiple weeks to forget what exactly I wanted to change, I’m making one pass from start to finish, changing things as I go. I’d really like to get this in shape for querying by the end of the month.

It’s supposed to be close to 110 F this weekend — that’s a good reason to stay inside and work on the edits.