I tend to like “what would you do?” scenarios. That concept is what inspired my latest Tuesday Night Story, Deposed. If you checked out part one, you know that Anald was overthrown by Sildon as King of the realm. What would you do in that situation? Surely a king has to plan in advance for situations like this. That is the overwhelming flaw of feudalism I imagine. You are constantly at risk of being invaded, poisoned, or executed by someone who wants your power.

If you didn’t catch part one check out Tuesday’s post. It should be the post directly under this one. Deposed will be the tale of what a king might do when he finds himself replaced. Would he stand by and give up, or would he fight back? Join me every Tuesday to find out!

In other writing news. My assassin novel is inching its way forward on the progress bar. It is up to 20% now. I’m really loving this story, but I haven’t had as much time to work on it as I would like. The Forest Awakens is also moving up slower than I wanted. I’m updating the edits as soon as I receive them, but Samantha has been rather wrapped up in her own work lately. Hopefully she’ll have some more time for it again soon. For anyone interested, she’s currently holding a giveaway on her blog. You can win a piece of jewelry from her Etsy shop for you or for someone special. Entering is very easy!

Today we finished recording the final part of Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities. That marks the end of three stories that I’ve written for Tuesday Night Storytime. At 9 parts, this story was the longest so far with 11,000 words. I think it’s one of my best works yet. As someone who usually follows the more traditional medieval fantasy, this was both a challenge and a blessing. It was a blast to work on something in a modern setting.

Because I do all my podcast writing in yWriter, I thought I’d share the statistics that it has kept track of. Since we began we’ve done 3 stories over 23 parts. All together that is almost 24,000 words, written and edited, in the last few months. I’m feeling pretty good about that!

This means it’s time to come up with a new story idea! I thought I would open the floor to my readers and internet buddies. This is a fantasy podcast, so keep that in mind. Your suggestion can be anything related to the genre. I thought it might be a fun thing to do whenever we finish a story.

And don’t forget to check back Tuesday for the final Snaggle episode!

I haven’t given you guys a writing update in awhile. I’m still plugging away at the assassin novel. The percentage bar is up to 15%. It has been going a bit slower than my initial estimation. Mostly because after some agent rejections my wife and I began a 5th draft of my YA novel. Hey, it never hurts to do more work. It’s almost finished (again) and I’ll soon be sending it off to more agents. Then I’ll get back into working on the assassin book full time again.

Episode 8 of Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities comes out tomorrow. It will be the second to last part of the story, since we don’t want to get up to 10 parts on any given story. In all it looks like the story will end up about 11,500 words. Does that still stand within short story limitations? *gives an evil little laugh* I love this story a lot, easily one of my best works so far. Things are about to turn a lot darker, so look forward to that.

Literary Agent Nathan Bransford just wrapped up a fun little contest. The idea of it was to get people to post the first paragraph of their work to be judged by him. Winners get small prizes, it seems more a pat yourself on the back kind of deal I suppose. It seemed fun though so I entered.

I thought I should share it with my readers as well. This is from my newest draft which hasn’t been updated on my books page (I should get on that). So I hope everyone enjoys. He announces the finalists tomorrow. Since it had over 2500 entries, I’m not exactly holding my breath. One can hope though!

Any of my readers enter it?

“I expect one of you to secure a place among the humans and help prepare for this vision’s time to come.” Lauryn turned in shock at her mother’s words. The Queen of the faeries stared out over the men and women deliberating all around her without any expression at all. Never in Lauryn’s lifetime had her mother called such a group together. Seated facing them on the dais, one hundred high lords and priestesses were now talking amongst themselves.

Some people have been asking me about my projects listed on the front page. Everywhere on the site they are only hinted and “coming soon.” I thought I would go ahead and fill people in about what I’ve been doing since finishing The Forest Awakens at the end of July.

Assassin’s Tale, Adult Fantasy

That is not the title I’ll use for the book, but it sums up what I’m going for. When I have a title I’ll let you guys know. I have always loved to read both fantasy and espionage, so it makes sense for my third book to be a fun mix of the genre’s. It will be mostly fantasy, so no guns or advanced government spy organizations, more back to the basics. Knives will be a popular weapon choice among thieves.

The book will track the protagonist while his life is, to some degree, falling apart. Once an honored soldier turned merchant’s guard, he finds himself on a downward spiral that leads him to become an assassin with the fate of two kingdoms caught in his schemes of revenge.

The novel will really be about the protagonist. I wanted to tell a detailed story of what it takes to break an honorable man and turn him into a deadly adversary. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

I’m estimating 100,000 words for this book. It’s plotted out at 38 chapters, using 2500 words/chapter as my rough estimate. I have about 12,000 completed. This project began in the middle of July.

Tuesday Night Story #3, Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities

I can hardly believe that we’re already on the 3rd TNS! This has been so much more fun than I expected when it began. To those that haven’t been keeping up, every Tuesday night I post roughly 1100 words of a continuing story. When story #2 began, my good friend David Carroll offered to record the stories each week. So TNS got an upgrade and became a podcast as well! You can find it on iTunes if you’re interested. See the mp3 player on the front page to listen to recent episodes.

Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities is a new style of writing for me. It is my first attempt at such a young voice. This one is a children’s tale about a strange new circus that has come to young Peter’s street. The circus is run by old Mr. Snaggle and it all seems just a bit too good to be true.

*****

That’s what I’ve been up to lately. Feel free to tell me about your latest projects in the comments. And make sure to check back tomorrow for the beginning of Mr. Snaggle’s Oddities! It may be one of my favorite story ideas yet.

Today was full of mixed thoughts. For one, I started teaching my new kiddos at College For Kids. Not to brag, but quite a few of them said this was going to be the best class. I agree, I think they’re all going to love it. I have plans to set it all up on this website under a folder. So that they can go show their parents–hopefully they will.  I think making them proud of it is the best way to make sure they remember some of what they learn.

On the other side of the emotion spectrum. I got home from work to an email letting me know that one of the agents I submitted my book to wasn’t interested. I’ve been bracing myself for months for my first rejection, but it sucked none-the-less. But oh well, at least it’s over. Now I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I have a list of new agents to send it to already. Perhaps one will like it, and if not, maybe they’ll like my next book. Whether it sells or not, this book is a lot of fun to have. It will always serve as a memory of my nephews’ youth.

My assassin book is going well. It’s moving up steadily during the first week of writing. I plan to keep that going on till November, when it should be done. I’m estimating the middle of that month. That is at a goal of 5,000 words a week, which I’m sure I can pass some weeks.

I’m closing this with a quote from David Morrell, one of my favorite writer’s. It’s from his book, THE SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST. One I have read more than once. I turned to it tonight after reading the rejection and it made me smile.

Any type of story is only a means–what a writer does with it is what matters. You’ll find it revealing if, after asking yourself, “Why do I want to be a writer?”, you ask yourself, “Why do I want to write this particular kind of fiction?”

“Because I need to.”

“Why do you need to?”

If you follow the logic in the progression of these questions, if you pay attention to the ferret that’s gnawing inside you, you’ll have a subject matter that’s your own. You’ll also approach your favorite type of story in a way that has special meaning to you. You’ll be an original and not an imitator. Because you’re true to yourself. Because you use your unique one-of-a-kind psyche as your guide. It may be that you’ll never be one of those twenty-five hundred writers who earn a living at it. But that was never the point in the first place. You didn’t become a writer to make money. You became a writer because your ferret and your daydreams/nightmares forced you to. If you do achieve financial success, all the better. But in the meantime, you did what you knew you must, and your reward was–only now is it a valid answer–the satisfaction of self-expression, of being creative.

Well the blog has been lagging lately. I do realize. Last weekend was the writer’s conference in Austin. The trip was an enormous success I feel. The agent I wanted to talk to the most also showed the most interest in my pitch! She asked me for a synopsis and 50 pages. I am more than eager to comply. The events going on right now are what I have been waiting for for weeks. It is time to send out query letters, synopsis, etc. to agents. It’s been fun writing and editing this book, but now it’s time to sell it. Or try to at least.

Tuesday Night Story has suffered, but I promise it will be back and running in July. And it’s going to have an upgrade as well! I’m going to wait to tell you guys about it to keep the surprise going. The anticipation will be eating you up soon, I know it!

I’ll leave everyone with some words about how difficult it is to be a writer.

I can see why all authors suggest you give up trying to be a writer if you don’t truly love it. The amount of work that you have to do just to be a writer, let alone a successful writer, is pretty intense. I hope to learn how hard it is to be successful, but for now I am struggling to keep up with the first.

Beyond writing a book, going through 5 drafts, and reading it 7 or 8 times, there is the business side which some suggest is even more important! Creating a professional query letter, condensing your work to a 1-page synopsis, and doing a speed read of your book hoping to find any last minute errors that could be lurking.

I love it, every last minute of it. And I can’t wait to do it again on the next book. I had the idea to post some perspectives on writing query letters and a synopsis, but should I wait to find out if I even did a good job? I think so. If an agent asks for the rest of my manuscript then I will jump around and share the secrets I stumbled upon and the great advice I found in research.

You probably noticed I’ve been a bit quieter this week than usual. I’m also going to skip the story tonight. I’ve been very, very busy this week and this weekend is the conference in Austin. I do not feel ready! But I’m doing everything I can to get ready. Studying agent’s, their authors, their interests, basically anything that might bring up a conversation that ends with, “I would love to see the first three chapters of your novel.” That is the goal of the weekend. I hope to hear that from at least three agents. There are six in attendance who dabble in my genre. Half is a good hope, right?

I’ve had things I want to post, but I simply haven’t gotten to them. Some might appear this week. It just depends how much research I get together for this weekend.

So wish me luck! This is a big deal! Next Tuesday will unravel more of the threat to Braydon and his home village.