Some may have noticed that the current projects listed on my front page were all reset to 0%! This isn’t a bad thing at all, and nothing was messed up in the process. I’ve begun plotting out my next book while my wife reads and edits my current. It is so refreshing to take a break from the editing process and work on something new. So far it is only a prologue, so I just updated it to 1%. Hah.

I’ve currently plotted out 13 Chapters of the new book. It still has a long way to go. My percentage for this book is based on it being 100,000 words. I’d like to make it a stand-alone novel and not part of a series. That isn’t to say it will be the only book in this world; if I enjoy the characters enough I might make more tales from it. But I want to try my hand at a book that works by itself since I only have worked on books designed as a series so far.

A buddy of mine became the first person to give me feedback on my newest Young Adult novel. It was fun (for me at least, you’d have to ask him) asking him questions that I have been rolling around in my mind for ages. In all, I think he really enjoyed it. The first parts of the book he tore through, reading entire sections of chapters in one day. That was nice. Then he had to wait for parts, and I think that pulled him away from the story some. In the end he still said it was very enjoyable.

He also answered some of those questions I’ve been wondering. Where are the slow parts, what aspects did you like best, was this section good, thoughts on this part over here? I assume they are the usual questions to a first reader. Parts he knew, others he didn’t know as much. It gave me a clear list of things to touch up on when I start fixing my wife’s editing notes.

So thanks, Taeloch! I appreciate the time!

Well, after months of editing I get to finally take a break. If only for a few days. I finished my third draft this afternoon of my YA (Young Adult) novel! Now my wife gets to edit it for grammar, hopefully I’ll have a picture of the whole thing tomorrow. I put one up yesterday with it at 146 pages. Now it is 199 and FINISHED!!

HUZZAH!

Well I had my first goodbye to school kids today. Even though I only got to know them for a month or so, it was still kind of hard to do. I can’t begin to imagine after an entire school year. That is going to be a hard part of teaching I think. That is what you do though, every year try to help as many kids as you can. Then they are off on the roller coaster of life to figure it out for themselves, hopefully with some more good guidance along the way.

I liked working at Crowley High School. Today I got to actually teach (if only a small lesson). I wish that more teachers would discuss current events with their students. It is so important. Today I got to ask them about Judge Sotomayor, if Congress agrees she will be the first Hispanic woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Since most of the kids in my classes were Hispanic it was fun to get to talk about. You can’t often help kids find heroes in every-day people. Maybe I did today with a few of them.

In writing news, I worked for many hours yesterday. I added more than 30% to my 3rd draft! Today I went and took up my father on his offer to let me print it at his law office. I printed up the first 146 pages of the book. Now it is Samantha’s time to take the red pen to it! June 26 is approaching quickly and I want to have it in as good of condition as I possibly can.

So goodbye Crowley High School, and on to Tarrant County College to teach web design in a Summer program for 7th and 8th graders. It will be my first real teaching job! Very exciting.

So I’m about 98% sure that I’m going to be able to go to this year’s agent’s conference in Austin. I’m incredibly excited! Since I’m about half done with the 3rd draft of the book, I am confident that the book will be complete by that time. With a purchase of the ticket you also get 10 minutes to pitch your book to an agent in your field. What an opportunity! That is not even considering all the other agent’s I can try to talk to and get their cards, etc. I think I’m also going to set up a web page on this site with my synopsis. I can write that on my own cards and hand it out. Easier than lugging around 20 copies and bugging agent’s.

Wish me luck, I’m already getting nervous about it.

I realized today that I have read my book, all 198 pages, 7 times now. I wonder when the editing will end! On the plus side, this is my last draft.  Well, until Samantha is done marking it up. That will be the big grammar edit. Most of what I do is for content, with grammar fixing here and there whenever I notice. I just cannot spot them like she can. And she can! It will make it much more professional I think.

I’m excited also because I think I might get a ticket to the big Agent’s Conference in Austin, TX. It is the biggest writing conference (I think) in Texas. With your ticket you get 10 minutes with an agent in your field. And I’ll have a completed book to talk about! It seems like a great opportunity. That is June 26-28. It is rather expensive, so I’m not sure just yet if I can take the trip. But I’m hoping!

In non-writing related news, my wife and I have been trying to exercise more. We have this little lake just south of our house. For the last three days straight we’ve taken a walk around it. I found a cool website that lets you plot out your walk and found out it is about 1.6 miles. Not a bad little daily exercise. I snagged a picture off my wife’s flickr.

Check back tomorrow for the latest Tuesday Night Story!

This is a funny little thing that some of my writing buddies here in Texas were going to participate in. It is the fourth year for this from the New York Writers Coalition. We figured why not, it sounded fun.  The premise is easy enough, spend a day (7 or so hours) dedicated to your writing. Many writers seem to have the biggest problem of staying focused and dedicated to finishing a book. That is why so few people ever actually write a book, and only a small percentage of THOSE people ever finish editing it. It is a LOT of work to write a book. I’m on my 3rd draft now, and I’m sure I’ll see a few more before it’s done. (It has to go through publishing house editors even after we edit our own books.)

This goal for today helped me a lot. I wrote an entire new prologue and first chapter for my book, and got another 6% editing. I’m up to 33% now. Which sort of adjusted because of the new pages at the start. So really, I did about 10% today, but some of it can’t be seen. I might keep going, I haven’t decided. It’s a little after 9 here. More than two hours left in the day to keep working. Shall I attempt? We shall see!

Thankfully the sickness is long gone. This last weekend was mother’s day, so my wife and I took a trip down to Austin to see her. It was a lot of fun. Since Samantha is such a great decorator, while we were there we hung tons of art work. She is so much happier with her place now (and the way her artwork looks I think). She loved our presents as well.

In other news, I started my AVID tutoring today. So far I had already done training sessions and all, so it wasn’t really my first day, but I got to actually be in the classroom working with kids today. It was a lot of fun. I had almost forgotten how sure and confident 10th graders were. They were a lot of fun to work with.

While we were driving down there we talked a lot about the problems I’ve been having with the beginning of my book. I’ve been stuck on the third draft because of it. We figured out a brand new prologue that is much more exciting, and we also came up with a ton of back story that dates all the way back to the Revolutionary War. It’s very exciting! I really think this book will be great. Hopefully the public agrees. I was able to get back to work on the editing today, so happily my percentages will be moving up again.