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 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.

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.

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.

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.