Ron Toland
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  • Wrapping Up a Month of New Writing Habits

    Wife made it back from Arkansas on Tuesday (huzzah!), so my hermit-writing time is coming to a close.

    Overall, I think having the weekly goals really helped me. While I didn’t hit them all (mumble mumble agent-search), I hit enough of them to build up a writing rhythm, and got a lot done.

    All told, I’ve:

    • written two new short stories, and have started a third
    • circulated three previously-written stories
    • completed final-pass editing of all but the last quarter of my first novel
    • reviewed nine submissions by litreactor peeps
    I'd like to keep up some of my new habits. I think the litreactor reviews help me to see similar problems in my own fiction, and practice fixing them. I also think the chapter-a-day editing is the only way I can get detailed editing passes done.

    I like writing a new short story every week, but at some point I’m going to need to work on editing them all into shape, so I can submit them. So I’ll keep that one for perhaps the next week or two, then settle into editing what I’ve got.

    → 8:20 AM, Jul 21
  • Scorecard: Second Week

    Two weeks in. Had a holiday in the middle of this one, so…how’d I do?

    • Edit one chapter a day: Mostly check. 5 days out of 7 isn't too bad.
    • Write a new short story each week: Done. First draft of "Wednesday" is complete and ready to submit to litreactor. Draft of second story is coming together.
    • Critique two stories each week: Check. This has become the easiest one to do.
    • Find a new agent to query each week: Nope again. I might need to drop this one, till the editing is done.
    • Polish and submit a new story each month: On track. Hope to get feedback on "Wednesday" soon, and then will revise and start submitting. Also got a rejection back for one of the stories I'd submitted, so I need to send it out again this week.
    → 7:55 AM, Jul 7
  • Scorecard: First Week

    Last week I set some goals to keep me on track for a productive summer.

    So, how am I doing?

    • Edit one chapter a day: Check. I'm working through the novel backwards this time, to keep it fresh for my editing eyes.
    • Write a new short story each week: Not complete, but new story (working title: Wednesday) is halfway done, and I'll wrap it up this weekend.
    • Critique two stories each week: Check. By the time the new story's done, I should have enough points to post it to the litreactor workshop for feedback.
    • Find a new agent to query each week: Nope. Need to set aside some time next week to do this.
    • Polish and submit a new story each month: Check. I've currently got three short stories making the submission rounds, one of which I submitted for the first time this month.
    → 7:58 AM, Jun 30
  • Three Fronts

    Made good progress on three different projects this week.

    First, the finished fantasy novel. I’ve pushed my first query letter out to my first choice of agent!

    I don’t know how hitting Send on an email could make me so tense, but it felt like I was walking on stage in front of a crowd of thousands. But now it’s done, and I can use the synopsis from that letter to build other queries for other agents.

    Second, I started workshopping a short story for the first time.

    A fellow writer recommended LitReactor to me last year; this week I finally worked up the courage to join and post something for review. It’s a story I wrote on the plane home from New York last month. I’ve already gotten some good feedback on it, and will probably post a second story there soon.

    Which brings to me to the third project: NaNoWriMo prep. I finished the short story (!) that I wanted to use to test out the concept. I think there’s definitely more to tell, there, though I’m not sure if I have enough for a full novel. Maybe just a series of stories.

    Guess there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to dive in and see how far I can get.

    → 6:00 AM, Oct 21
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