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Any writers?

Undertow

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,126
Location
Des Moines, IA, US
Undertow, how is the writing going?

Good, thanks for asking!

I finished my novel Among the Damned about 6 or 7 months ago. It needs the finishing touches (editing, rewriting, polishing, etc.) before I hand it off to an editor. Once I get started, it will probably take a year or two, unless I really buckle down. It's hovering just over 200pgs.

I've also been well into a collection of dystopian short stories, which has a tentative title for now. Unfortunately, it would seem that many of these stories I'm writing are becoming all too true before I can get them published, haha. The short stories have been a lot of fun because I can work with so many dysfunctional characters. Lots of love, hate, desperation and pain - YAY!

I've also hung a few things up for a while. I'll probably wait to travel a few big cities before I resume work on my "impersonator" novel. I'm planning to scrap the detective work - it's genre writing, and I'm really poor at formulas.

The best news is that I found a competent - if not ravishing - editor. I'm absolutely crawling out of my skin to have her start combing through my work. She's already looked over 2 pieces and gave me some solid feedback, so I know I have a good thing!

So how about you, Amateis? How's your editing coming along?
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
Wow. You're doing awesome, Undertow! Well done. :eusa_clap

Editing is going slow, and it is sometimes tortuous as I tend to overthink things. But it's a process I love nevertheless. I'm headed to my first big writing conference in Denver next weekend and will have a pitch session with an agent. Keeping my fingers crossed!
 

Pompidou

One Too Many
Messages
1,242
Location
Plainfield, CT
Good, thanks for asking!

I finished my novel Among the Damned about 6 or 7 months ago. It needs the finishing touches (editing, rewriting, polishing, etc.) before I hand it off to an editor. Once I get started, it will probably take a year or two, unless I really buckle down. It's hovering just over 200pgs.

I've also been well into a collection of dystopian short stories, which has a tentative title for now. Unfortunately, it would seem that many of these stories I'm writing are becoming all too true before I can get them published, haha. The short stories have been a lot of fun because I can work with so many dysfunctional characters. Lots of love, hate, desperation and pain - YAY!

I've also hung a few things up for a while. I'll probably wait to travel a few big cities before I resume work on my "impersonator" novel. I'm planning to scrap the detective work - it's genre writing, and I'm really poor at formulas.

The best news is that I found a competent - if not ravishing - editor. I'm absolutely crawling out of my skin to have her start combing through my work. She's already looked over 2 pieces and gave me some solid feedback, so I know I have a good thing!

So how about you, Amateis? How's your editing coming along?

Your series of dystopian short stories sound like something I'd read. I think Poe said that any writing that can't be read from start to finish in one sitting loses too much power. There's some truth to that.

I'd been writing, and still am, the verse novel about the Victorian girl and her automaton, and my two business partners thought it'd be cool to make it something of a serial for reading in the hopefully-to-happen-someday cafe of mine, and it seems I'm going that route. Honestly, I didn't start it with an end in mind anyway, or a plot, or much of anything but a few lines that rhymed almost like Doctor Seuss. I tend to just improvise as I go. I've finished one small plot arc so far, taking the girl from grandma's house at night, through some scary woods, into a haunted house and back. That's enough material to at least start with - about five chapters, if you want to call them that.
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
So I'm at a writing conference in Colorado. Just had my first agent pitch session. Totally blew the pitch itself, but the agent was very impressed with my freelance work since it has so much to do with the publishing world. I was surprised (but glad!) when she asked to see the first two chapters of my novel. Hurrah!
 

Pompidou

One Too Many
Messages
1,242
Location
Plainfield, CT
I love it when stories just take on a life of their own and take on new directions you never saw coming. Time to start chapter 6. The first 27 (if I can do it) are going to comprise the first story arc and can go in a blank, parchment & leather, tome of a book that my sister got me eons ago but that I haven't written anything worthy of. I'll have to check up on what it takes to copyright something. They say things are automatically copyrighted the moment you put pen to paper, so to speak, but there must be a way to time-stamp your work so that others don't say they held the copyright first. Off to Google.
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
I will have an article published in America in WWII magazine in mid-February. Pretty excited about that.

As far as the last finished novel goes, I had four agents request the full manuscript - two have already rejected me. GAH. Sometimes I loathe this game...

I'm working on my fifth novel right now.
 

rokket

New in Town
Messages
37
Location
Australia
Hey, congrats! I've always like the tastes of that mag, maybe I'll HAVE to get a subscription now!

That's still good news on the novels and agent requests. And look at you, working on your FIFTH. Keep going.
 

ShortAndCashed

One of the Regulars
Messages
247
Location
NE Alabama
I have never actually sold a piece, but I do write. My current work is a screenplay set in prohibition era, with a loose basing on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." So far, I'm probably scrapping what I have and starting over from the get-go.
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
I have never actually sold a piece, but I do write. My current work is a screenplay set in prohibition era, with a loose basing on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." So far, I'm probably scrapping what I have and starting over from the get-go.

Sometimes, we must scrap it and start over, though it's painful. Good luck!
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
Writers, time to check in...

How is the writing going?

Me: 1) Revising my last novel per an agent's suggestions. She wants to look at it again when I'm done. 2) Working on another article for America in WWII magazine
 

Shangas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,116
Location
Melbourne, Australia
I'm writing a short piece (about two pages long) that I hope to submit to the local Reader's Digest. They're accepting small personal stories which might be of public interest. I'm recounting an event for the Digest that happened to me a few years back.
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
I'm writing a short piece (about two pages long) that I hope to submit to the local Reader's Digest. They're accepting small personal stories which might be of public interest. I'm recounting an event for the Digest that happened to me a few years back.

Best of luck!
 

Shangas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,116
Location
Melbourne, Australia
I've started writing another "Haines & Holloway" historical detective story. As with a lot of my story ideas, this one came to me during several bouts of brain-melting boredom. It matured and evolved over the past fortnight or so, and I'm penning the opening pages right now.

Literally penning them. With a fountain pen.

Because MS. Word barely works on this old laptop. It's so slow and it freezes so often that it's not worth typing up this story until I get my regular P.C. fixed and running again.

It's at times like this, I wish I had a typewriter.
 

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