For those who’ve been following the blog, I’ve been very quiet lately. This is for three reasons: one, I was heads down working on revisions for my new deadline, and two, this takes up a lot of time. I also had jury duty this month, which in my county is surprisingly involved, and I visited DragonCon, so all in all the month was crazy.

The good news is I finished my revision, on time, with a few days to spare. I’m proud of what I’ve done – I rewrote the ending, added a new emotional low for my main character, and overall made the book a lot stronger. I also added backstory, worldbuilding, and general shading stuff, the small details that makes a project stronger. With all of that going, it’s a small miracle that I finished early, and I’d like to thank all the people (including my husband) who were patient with me while I did the work.

I received a confirmation email from Jesse telling me that she received the manuscript, and now it’s back to a waiting game. Part of me is nervous to see what she thinks, and the other part is relieved to have this done. Very, very relieved. I did good, and now I get to be happy about it. 🙂

I’ll try to catch you up on other assorted things that happened this month. Jesse and I talked about my cover and back blurb and I sent her some ideas. I should see an initial draft from the publisher on the cover sometime in December. I also attended some great seminars on series at DragonCon which will help me shape the rest of the books – Michael Stackpole, for example, recommends sketching out the next ten books by the time you’ve finished the first.

So I’m going to try to do that (more in another post). I’ve also got to come up with a list of authors to do my recommendation blurbs and figure out (with the help of agent and editor) how to approach them. I’ve got to outline the second book well enough to start writing. Plus the real life thing – I’m surfacing to visit my writer’s group again, catching up with friends I’ve neglected, and actually cleaning my house on occasion. The next few months are going to be busy, but awesome.

Stay tuned for a post on what I learned from DragonCon about authorial presence, and a post with the results of my research on series and how to set one up. It’s going to be fun around here 🙂