Reidr Daniels

Good luck with the surgery. Once it's done you'll have a great to focus on your writing!

And I thought I was busy with 'other stuff'. Good on you for keeping it all together, Holly. 

I had a good April. Met my goal. Finished editing the first novel in my trilogy. It's now out for one final beta-read...my wife. She's tough. For May, I plan to complete the final edit (#7) for Novel 2. If there's time left over, I'll start edit #7 for Novel 3. I'm giving myself a deadline of Oct. 1 to have the trilogy ready to go. Novel 4 is already in progress. I'm leaning heavily toward self-publishing but I still have a lot of research to do around that approach.

 Eyebrow.fetish...

I just learned that The Martian was self-published by Andy Weir, initially at $0.99 U.S. He later picked up an agent and, altogether, sold 5 million copies. The book became a movie, starring Matt Damon.

Thrilled for you Heens. Can't wait to hear how your agent search plays out.

I'm no expert here but theme, to me, is what underlies the story...what it's truly about. It may require that you read between the lines. I think of genre as a category within which the style, subject matter or intended audience are simliar. But that's just my take.

Hi Chele. Like others, I generally have a title in mind when I start writing, based on the theme of the manuscript. The title of my first novel didn't change until somewhere around the fifth re-write because the direction of the story changed.

Congratulations Jane! Well done.

Frustratingly awesome. Is that a thing? Congratulations Holly. #knockingitoutofthepark

I've had the silent treatment too. In no other industry would that be considered acceptable behavior. My assumption is that the synopsis alone was enough to convince them the story wasn't a good fit for them. But even a thanks-but-no-thanks would have been appreciated.

Definitely a rite of passage (see: Hemingway). It's like trying to hit a hole-in-one, in golf. A lot of things have to come together. If you're lucky enough to get anything more than a "standard" no-thanks, consider reworking and resubmitting to that agent. At least they were interested enough to give you something the first time up. Maybe it's an opening.

Geez Holly, I look at your highly productive March and immediately Hugh Grant's question from "Four Weddings and a Funeral" hits me..."WTF have I been doing...?". Well, not much apparently. I'd hoped to finish Rev 10(!) of Pyrate Rising. Doing my taxes, family emergencies (now resolved) and some travel are my excuses for being only two-thirds done. Which leads me to April. I really want to make this the last round of edits before submission to agents. So I'm going to spend April focused entirely on my "go-to-market" run.

Hi Nekolisha,

Welcome to JT.

In addition to being a writer, I'm a bit of a math nerd. I record the length of each chapter of each of my books. Here are the statistics from my first three novels (a trilogy), showing the minimum, average, and maximum number of words per chapter:

1st novel: 551 - 2,401 - 4,836

2nd novel: 695 - 2,161 - 4,128

3rd novel: 1,060 - 2,893 - 4,977

I may not be a good role model to follow but I hope you find some comfort from my sharing this information.

Reid