I got an acceptance to Bards & Sages Quarterly. The Last Dragon will be appearing in their December issue. Off the top of my head I think this is my fifth story accepted by them. If you are a fantasy writer looking for a place to send a short story I can’t recommend them enough, the editors are great to work with and they put out a professional looking product that you can be proud of.
My current novel is coming along nicely. I just hit the 20,000 word mark. Everything seems to be flowing a lot easier this time. So I am asking myself what is different about my process this time. The only thing I can think of is the outline/plotting process. I wrote my first couple of novels with no outline, these were fun stories but lacked structure. The plot ambled along, going this way and that, until the end came out of nowhere (a lot like most of my blogs).
I wrote my next novel with a very rigid outline. The novel plugged along but writing it just wasn’t any fun. It took me about twice as long to finish the novel. And I really think you can tell that I didn’t even like the story or the characters by the time I got to the end. And to be honest I can’t remember how the thing ended. I can tell you all kinds of details about the novel I finished in 2009 but the one I finished a few months ago is a mystery. I think that really says something about me and rigidly structured writing.
This time I have an outline, but I am allowing the story to go where it wants and then I write a new outline whenever I need to. It is much more organic, providing structure without hampering my creativity. I think I may have finally found a way to write that really suits me and what I need as a writer. Of course I won’t know for sure until I finish novel but I can say that this writing process is making me a lot more productive.
In other news, that is only vaguely writing related, the summer reading program starts on Saturday. This is the busiest time of year for a children’s librarian. Last year we had just over two hundred kids sign up for the program, I am hoping for more this year.
The last day of the program is July 13th. The doctors say that I will be a dad on August 22nd, but there is a very good chance that it will be a month or so earlier than that since we are having twins. So it might be awhile before I can squeeze in any blog posts or writing time to find out if I actually did find “my writing style”.
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