A Season of Storms is in Submissions

I worried that the day would never come, but I have decided it's arrived. I'm moving my pursuit of this dream career into it's next phase. I'm now a submitting writer.
I've sent out query letters to 8 or so agents. I'm drafting up a 2 page synopsis and I'll be submitting to a few more with this additional requirement.
Like anything writerly, this is a slow and painful process filled with rejection and insecurity... so I'm not holding my breath. Once I get through a dozen or so more query's I'll send my manuscript to a publisher. For that you typically can only send one out at a time, which is good because it's like $20 a pop. That usually runs 3 to 18 months to hear back. Leaning on the latter end of the window. So, the rule of thumb is to not hold one's breath and keep writing.

In other news, I'm seriously contemplating building my own blog site to feature both my writing and my art. I'm very tempted to do this and then after a year or so trial out a series release of one of my novels with art in a weekly format... we'll see how that goes when the time comes.

Quick update for A Season of Storms, a.k.a. Zombie Wife

I'm on page 87 of 317 for my final edit draft before I start submitting. Hurrah!

Send It Home

I want to send a big thank you out to all my Beta readers for Speaker of the Winds, Volume 1.
You're all super cool people. Brave too! I might add. It's time for me to call all Manuscripts home, that I might review your detailed comments and improve the reader experience of the Novel.

If you're close to being finished, take up to a week to wrap it up and send it back.
If you're a long ways from being finished. Take up to a week to wrap it up and send it back. Lol. Sorry I had to say it. :-)

If you are shipping it, you know me. Reach out and I'll get you my address if you need it. I'll reimburse you for shipping, but please do me a favor and ship USPS, Media Mail. (Don't let the post office employee argue with you, Manuscript bound or unbound is specifically mentioned in their Media Mail eligible media. Tell them to look it up if they have to.)

I want to thank you for taking your time to read my manuscript and help give the reader feedback I needed to gain an outside in view on my story. Your perspective is invaluable.

Thank you again,
Luke

Free Fins... because if it's free. Give it fifteen minutes.

Fins by Ashley Knight is free on Amazon for a very limited time. Click here and download it to your Kindle app/device.

Ashley has written three novels in this series. Fins, Fathom and Forever.

She lives with her family and writes in Idaho. Just the fact she's an Idahoan alone is enough to tell you she's an excellent person. Ashely has a talent with words.  Give fins a chance and download it now while it's free. Then put it at the top of your to-read list.

Ashley is an active writer and spends much of her time in the writing community supporting the rest of us pursuing the dream. She's a hand-up person and holds much admiration and respect from us writers. <-- (My northern Idaho grammar coming through.)

Take a dive and a swim into Fins today.

Thinks that last bit was clever, I do. Lol.

http://ashleylknight.com/home.html

Alpha in the wild

As you can are Brittany is hard at work on A Season Of Storms.

A Season of Storms

The story made it through it's first reading since the revision, is printed and is now going into blood letting. We expect it be a blood bath.

Oh dear. I may have to buy more red pens.

A Season of Storms out to Alpha

It's officially getting it's second read. Mean time I'm writing query letters and reviewing for the senses.

It's v.s. Its

I know it's simple right?
Yet it seems that my brain only see's it's when I'm drafting. So I have to do an entire edit sweep to fix those. So I did and I finished it this morning.
I've finished my regular edits and formatting edits. So that just leaves a few theme updates to tie into the new title and I'll be passing the novel on to my alpha reader. A.k.a. Brittany, my wife.
While she's reading it I'll add in some more description. You know, because God's in the details.
I miss a lot of that in my first drafts. Describing colors, smells, sight and other things I see in my head but it didn't hit the page. Having the draft clean and in order will allow me to smooth out pacing, make those last few connections I missed, and bring out the details that will immerse the reader into the story and help them feel like they are the characters.
Have I told you how excited I am about this story?
I really like it and think it represents a vast growth in my writing from 'speaker' to this one.

It's v.s. Its

I know it's simple right?
Yet it seems that my brain only see's it's when I'm drafting. So I have to do an entire edit sweep to fix those. So I did and I finished it this morning.
I've finished my regular edits and formatting edits. So that just leaves a few theme updates to tie into the new title and I'll be passing the novel on to my alpha reader. A.k.a. Brittany, my wife.
While she's reading it I'll add in some more description. You know, because God's in the details.
I miss a lot of that in my first drafts. Describing colors, smells, sight and other things I see in my head but it didn't hit the page. Having the draft clean and in order will allow me to smooth out pacing, make those last few connections I missed, and bring out the details that will immerse the reader into the story and help them feel like they are the characters.
Have I told you how excited I am about this story?
I really like it and think it represents a vast growth in my writing from 'speaker' to this one.

Quick post

Zombie Wife is now A Season of Storms. It's 317 pages. About 70,000 words. I'm in spelling and grammer edits, which is my last run, so I'm hoping it'll be out to alpha this week, then Beta readers soon after.
I'm excited.

Zombie Wife Now In Manuscript Edits

This morning I put Zombie Wife into Manuscript format. Actually it's half way there. By tomorrow it it will be fully imported. Then I'll start the mega edit pass-through. A spelling, grammer, final notes, duplicate word usage, over usage, and anything else I can think of edit.
I also have a strong theme adjustment to impliment which will modify and maybe even build out a few scenes. But I need it in one document to do this. Also, this edit will enable me to rename the title effectively. Which is important. I've been wanting a title from the beginning that felt very 1960's end of the world experience novel feel like 'on the beach'. 
I have a few thoughts, but no commitments:
A Season of Storms
Summers Thunder
Waking Angel

Something like that.
What ever I choose, I'll run it past my beta readers to see what they think.
Zombie Wife works on an accuracy level, but I feel it was a quick pick so I could just get to writing already. I want a title that evokes passion and memory. My experience with titles like this is that it's like an incomplete story. It starts a rememberance and makes a promise that especially when remembered post novel reading evokes emotional memories. It can be tough at start, but later pays off.

Zombie Wife Micro Post

I'm about 52.456304534095843% done with the first big round revisions for Zombie Wife.
Can't tell you how excited I am to wrap this up in about 2 weeks and send it out to my readers.
I hope you guys are pumped because this thing rocks.

Yeah, I'm excited.

uncharacteristically

Uncharacteristically.

• It takes twenty letters to spell it out. 
• Yes, it's a dreaded 'ly' word
• It's an adjective and not entirely necessary
• the thing takes up half the line of text
• six more letters and it would be the alphabet long
• It de-rails the reader like an atom bomb

And did I just use it in chapter 1 of my novel?

You bet-ya! 

And there it stays!

Draft 1 on zombie wife complete

I've been cracking at it for some time now, but I've finished the second round of drafts on my first draft. Now I'm making the "big" edit pass through the novel. I might end up with an extra scene or two from here, but it's mostly edits now. Fix this fix that, and then on to Beta readers. I'm guessing four to six weeks for that.
Are you excited? You can bet your knickers I am! (Haven't said that for a while.)
If you're currently chewing through that ten course meal that is Speaker of the Winds, the clock is ticking.

:-)

Awe.... gee! Oh well.

The results are in. Sadly I didn't win the Writing Excuses Retreat scholarship. It's alright. There were over 70 qualified applicants, at least the opportunity was there and someone is going to get the writing experience of a lifetime.

I'm nearing the end of scene's I'm adding to Zombie Wife. It's still short of where I think it should be. Draft 1 will clock in under 57,000. After my first revision it may still be under 60,000. Feels weird to write something so small. That said, it will be great to get another novel under my belt and start in with some more experience into my next novel.

I haven't decided what to write next. I'm very tempted to write Monster in the Woods, but it's possible that the story concept may need to be heavily revised.  Also I've been playing with another story concept that I can call Desert Sands for now. It's got some really interesting world building, magic systems. It's the least developed of the two, but I've been chewing on it for as long as I have been for Monster in the Woods.  We'll see what comes of this after I've wrapped up revisions on Zombie Wife.

Just a small update.  ;-)

So what's next?

While Speaker of the Winds goes out and is reviewed, a process I expect to take many months, I'm going to revise Zombie Wife.
Brittany and I are really excited about this one and she believes it's my best work yet. I finally managed to pre-write a full outline before drafting the story and I have to admit it wrote the fastest.
I do have many revisions planned for it already and the second draft will be substantially improved and expanded. I expect it to grow my as much as double. Currently it's sitting just over 40,000 words, but I need it to be closer to the 80 to 90's.
I've been told the ending could be considered zombie cliche, but I see it more as zombie traditional. Still it makes me nervous, so I'm going to write an alternate ending and get some feedback from my readers. So you zombie story junkies let me know what you think when it comes around.

For now, what do you think? Does cliche, even when done well, turn you off?

Thx

A Memory of Light

It was an adventure. Monday night I visited Provo, UT to attend the Q&A and signing of the last book in the Wheel of Time series. A Memory of Light.

Then I attended the midnight launch/signing and picked up my copy. I'd say it was a historic event. Of course, very busy for my tastes, but it was manageable  Thanks to the help of family I was only #479 out of 2100+ books sold that night in that bookstore I'm told. Which means that I was finally through the personalization line (Since the books were pre-signed.) and got to have Brandon write a brief message and take a picture.
Like the series, this book is more about all the people who put it together and support it, not just the writer. So they also had many of those people here. Harriet, Robert Jordan's wife, was at the Q&A and she also signed the books. Maria, who worked heavily in the world for continuity, and others who contributed heavily to the books production.
I got through the line around 2:30am. Brandon was already very tired and there were still hundreds of people behind me.  Probably not thousands. Most picked up their book and went home. Likely because Brandon lives locally and can personalize their book later.