There have been a lot of things going on behind the scenes over the past month! Tomeworks, our genre fiction editing collective, officially launched on March 1. Getting ready to launch Tomeworks has kept me incredibly busy over the past few months, so much so I haven’t had as much time for my own writing as I would like. Now that we’ve launched, I’m hoping I can settle into a more comfortable routine and dedicate more of my time to writing.
Tomeworks logo and tagline
I’ve set some ambitious writing-related goals for myself this year. I’m currently revising my novel, Broken Tethers, and plan to have the majority of revisions and edits done by the end of March. It’s been sneaking up on me! But I’m really motivated to see this book in the best shape it can possibly be in, because I want to start querying agents with it starting in May.
That means April will be dedicated to researching the agents I want to query. I’m nervous to take this step, frankly, because when I think about agents and querying I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. Sure, I’ve written a query letter before, and I could write a synopsis of my book if I put my mind to it. But as far as finding the right agents to query goes, I’m stumped. I have a few online resources that should help, but still. The task is daunting.
Even while I’m working on all of this, I’ll still be busy elsewhere. My fellow Tomeworks editors have been leading a push for us to sign up to be panelists at conventions, partly for fun but also to get our names out there and (hopefully) establish ourselves as experienced professionals in our field. It’s a little bit outside of my comfort zone to participate in events like this, as I’d generally rather fly under the radar and get things done quietly. But I understand the importance of becoming an established presence in the wider writing community. So, to that end, I’ll be participating in three upcoming conventions. The first, AggieCon, is this weekend in College Station! I’ll be on a couple of panels organized by fellow Tomeworks editor Sean Morrissey Carroll. Then, later in March, I’ll be a panelist for Storycrafting Sessions: Drafting online conference, talking about how to choose the right point of view for a story. I’m excited to chat with my fellow panelists; I’ve always been fascinated by the choices authors make when it comes to point of view, so I’m sure it will be a good time. Finally, my fellow Tomeworks editors and I are running a critique workshop at Comicpalooza this May! I’ve loved attending Comicpalooza since moving to Houston, so it will be interesting to experience the convention from behind the curtain. And it seems like authors are looking forward to our workshop; this is the first year Comicpalooza will have a literature track after it was cut a few years back, and that has generated quite a bit of excitement.
So, between Tomeworks and events and putting the finishing touches on my novel, there are a lot of changes happening in my working life right now. It’s a little scary, but it feels like I’m heading in the right direction. The only thing I need to work on is making sure to keep carving out time every day for writing. I feel like it’s easy for that to fall to the wayside, so I’m making an effort to keep up with it.
I have a few ideas for shiny new projects in the coming year! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the environments of west Texas, especially since so much of the wild space in west Texas is currently on the cusp of being paved over by developers. Unrelatedly, I’ve also been rediscovering my childhood love of dinosaurs and the Dinotopia series. Those two thoughts have somehow combined in my brain, and now I want to write a dinosaur western set in Texas. In true “me” fashion, this project is currently #noplotjustvibes, but I’m letting it percolate a bit. I know next to nothing about the western genre, so I’ll need to do some research before embarking on writing. But I’m excited to see where the idea will take me! After I start querying my current novel, of course.
As always, thanks for reading my ramblings. Until next time.
<3 A.P.