This blog has not gotten the attention that it deserves lately. This is in part due to a crazy hectic summer that had me on the road 2 of every 3 days in June and July, scrambling like mad to stay caught up on the days I was home.

But the dearth of posts is also due in part to me not knowing what to blog about. When I first started 90,000 Words of Delusion, it was a place for me to share my writing journey. I was learning so much, so fast, and it was great to be able to share that. I’m still learning a lot, but for some reason I don’t feel that’s enough on which to build a blog. It’s certainly an important part of my platform, but while I have gained a great deal of experience in the world of writing, I can hardly consider myself an expert. In addition, I would like this blog to appeal to people outside of the writing community as well.

To be honest, I don’t really see myself as an expert in anything, and this has been my main hang-up in trying to understand and develop my blogging “platform.” I’ve been lead to believe that becoming an “expert” is the way to go with blogging, and the best way to reach a focused audience.

However, my interests are many and varied, and I bristle at the thought of picking one and becoming The Authority. In fact, I’ve come to realize one of the things I like most about writing is that it allows me to research and explore many different areas of life.

So while the wisdom of the blogosphere says I need to become an expert to have a successful blog platform, I’m going to experiment with blogging about various topics that I find interesting. If I’m lucky, the topics I pick will resonate with some of you. In any case, I’ll have a lot more fun picking topics to blog about.

Hopefully this experiment will succeed. But even if it succeeds, it has to be better than the dreaded blog of silence.

I just logged on to my email, and there it was – my first rejection as a novelist.

I can’t say I’m shocked, or even surprised, really. I’ve read enough from the experiences of others to know that rejection is a part of the process, especially with first-attempt novels. In fact, this rejection doesn’t really even sting yet, although I suspect that might change as the news settles in.

To be honest, I think I would have been a little embarrassed to have gotten a contract on the very first try. But only a little.

So now it’s time to move forward. I’m choosing to take the rejection letter at face value when it says Delivering Tuberoses “has good potential.” Because it does.

There are other publishers to submit to, and I plan to start customizing my query letter in the next few days. But for today I have a writing goal of a thousand words for Space Corp General, and I’m only a few hundred words in. Hitting that goal is my priority for the day.

Then I’ll send out some more queries.

I’ve known for a while what the the two follow-up books to my current WIP would be about, but I had a hard time making the second book work in my mind. Then, suddenly this past week, I had a shot of inspiration: set it in the POV of the female character and have it follow the classic romance format. I think it would work that way, and work well.

This leads me to a bit of a delema on what to work on once my current WIP goes into the submission circuit at the end of the month. My first thought is to go with something completely different – my MG SciFi story. This would be timely, as the pendulum seems to be swinging back towards SciFi and away from Fantasy. And the story is a lot of fun.

But I could also start on the second book of the current series. If my book gets picked up, I’ll want to have the sequel already in the works. This last book has taken me a good 18 months to write, and I’m told publishers like to have something to release every year to keep the author’s momentum going.

And even if the first book doesn’t get published, it’s possible the second, which would undoubtedly be stronger, have a more traditional romance format, and could easily be written to stand on its own, might have a better chance of getting a publisher.

I think what I’ll do is let the LDStorymakers First Chapter Contest committee decide. I’ve entered the first chapter from both books – whichever one does better, that’s what I’ll work on while the first book is out on submission.

That is, unless I decide to write something else.

The above goal will let me finish the Beta 2.0 rewrite in 8 weeks, and allow 2 weeks to polish Beta 2.1 before my December 1st release date. This realization is scary for two reasons:

1. I’ve revised an average of 739 words per day this week, and will need to average 4147 words the next two days to stay on target.

2. There are less than 10 weeks until December!

To be fair, I will probably be behind a bit during the first half of the rewrite. The universal consensus is the first half of the book needs much more work than the second half. It’s more character-driven than plot-driven, and nobody likes the main character much until half-way through.

Feedback has come trickling in. Not enough for me to start a full-blown rewrite yet, but I feel it’s time to start writing again.

To that end, I began fleshing out a few places that were basically mini info-dumps and turned them into real scenes. This is work I know has to happen without anyone’s feedback telling me so.

Also, I wanted to include suggestions made in a contest I had a few months back. I asked people to finish the sentence “A story set in Hawaii simply must include _____.” I got 26 responses, and while some of the suggestions were already part of the story, I wanted to try and work in as many as possible. Most were really good ideas and have slipped in beautifully.

A few (including Candace’s exploding volcano – thanks!) have taken a little more effort, but I believe I’ve figured out how to work them in while staying true to the story. I realize I didn’t need to do this, but it’s been kind of fun and I think it actually adds some depth and interest.

So now, for a goal. My initial schedule had me finishing up this next draft at the end of October. That’s not going to happen unless I compromise significantly on the quality of the draft. I really want this next version to shine, so I’m going to give myself until the end of November. November 22 for the writing to all be done, and that will give me some time over Thanksgiving weekend to proofread and re-proofread and re-re-proofread.

Then I’ll be looking for a few more brave souls willing to spend some of their quite December downtime reading through my masterpiece. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I went through today and added PageFour pages for each scene I still need to write. After today’s session there are an even dozen remaining, for a grand total of 62 scenes.

When those scenes are written, I should have something close to 75,000 words, which is probably about right for this draft.

Then with the next draft I can add 15,000 words to better describe sights, sounds, and aromas, as well as fidgety little actions to break up great expanses of dialog.

I’m signed up for Tristi’s July Book In A Month challenge. No big surprise here, really.

I set myself some rather lofty goals after the last BIAM, hoping to have my second draft done by the end of July. Sadly, that will not happen. However, it’s not from lack of trying and I’ve made some really good progress on this story. Since that’s what goals are really all about, I’m happy.

I’m sticking with my goal of having a third draft done at the end of October, as I’m hoping to give it to some readers and meet with them in November. It could happen.

So anyway, my BIAM goal, starting July 1, is to write 1500 words a day. If I make it, it will put me well on the way to finishing this draft by Labor Day, with a full two months to revise by Halloween.

Our vacation to Utah next month will have a significant impact on this goal. I’m hoping the impact is positive.