It's been a while since I've bloggd, so I figured I'd do another "Project Update," in which I egotistically discuss the current status of my my various manuscripts. It will probably wind up being a recurring topic on this blog, actually. Anyway, as I've discussed before, I have three projects a-brewing, so to speak.
My thesis for Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction program, a middle-grade science fiction novel called Savage Jungle, has been approved by my mentors (yahoo!). However, I am setting it aside for a couple months to mull over a couple suggestions one of my mentors gave me about it. I agree with the suggestions and want to come back to the manuscript with fresh eyes before I make the changes and submit it out into the world.
Regarding my MG dystopian, The Adult Plague, I have finished the rough draft, as I think I mentioned in my last post. Therefore, I'm setting it aside for the next couple months so I can return to it with fresh eyes (sensing a trend here?) and make any additional changes before I send it out to critique partners.
That means I have some time here (a couple months if you've been counting) in which nothing's on my plate writing-wise, so I've decided to return to my other manuscript that's been sitting on the backburner for a while (about seven months), my MG epic fantasy, Ungifted. The decision behind this is twofold. To make it seem more exciting, I'm going to bullet both points below:
1. I don't have any new sparkly ideas for stories swirling around in my brain. Nothing. Nada. My brain feels very empty.
2. Over the past couple months my brain started to naturally, and quite nostalgically, think about Ungifted more and more. Clearly, the story hasn't quite let go of me. And since I've returned to the story, I've found that I've actually really quite missed it.
Now that I'm back to revising Ungifted, lots of changes are jumping out to me as I read it. I believe there's also a twofold reason for this (get ready for the exciting bullet points!):
1. I've improved as a writer.
2. I've had seven whole months away from it, so I'm returning to it with fresh eyes. And no, not a brand-new fresh pair of eyes, just ones that haven't laid themselves on the story in a long time.
All that being said, I'm not sure how long I'll be working on Ungifted, and I'm not sure what's going to come of it. Maybe I'll just work on it until it's time to return to the other manuscripts, but it's been fun coming back to it.
And now back to Ungifted revisions!
3 comments:
I feel about EARTHLING HERO like you feel about UNGIFTED. We've improved so much as writers, right? But the premise is still cool for both books. Hmmm. I'll probably write EARTHLING HERO over, start from word one, maybe with a copy of the current version on hand. Anyway, I'll watch to see what you do. Good luck!
Wow..starting over from word one? That's intense! But yeah, EARTHLING HERO was pretty darn good. And you're right. The premises of both books are sweet. Oh.........so sweet.
I think it's one of those things that sound harder than it actually is...probably halfway thru I'd go, WTH did I get myself into?, but at The End, I'd be thrilled.
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