Mmk, I screwed up. I put off doing this blog entry for too long and now my kiddo is home and I’m trying to focus enough to write it. That is not an easy task. She loves singing random songs and making odd noises. These things are very distracting to me and make focusing on anything difficult. So, note to self, in the future write your blog entries before Danica gets home from school.

If I seem more disjointed than usual, that’s why.

That’s right. I’m totally blaming my teenager.

That’s okay, right?

<.<

>.>

Oh hey! She just went downstairs and took my excuse with her. Which means I probably ought to delete everything I’ve written above this, but I’m not going to. Because I don’t wanna. 🙂

Shadows is done.

That’s exciting, but less than I’d like. You see, Shadows finished at about 41k words. That lands it pretty squarely in the ‘Incredibly awkward length that is a nightmare to sell’ category. Also, I’m rather pissed, to be honest. This draft was supposed to be longer than my last one, so how did it end up shorter? Gah. The story is stronger, the characters have more depth and overall I feel good about it, but that word count… ugh.

I’m trying to figure out what to do with it now. My original plan had been to start looking for an agent to represent it, but the length makes that a problem. The way I see it my options sort of look like this:

1. Give it another quick pass and see if there is room for 4 or 5k words of description or something similar that would not just be ‘filler’ that dilutes the story and then look for an agent. Pros: I have a shot at finding an agent and possibly getting published in a way that will reach a larger audience than any of my previous work. Cons: I think it would be tricky to add 10% more words to the story without it just being fluffy filler. Maybe possible, but tricky.
2. Seek publication on my own as it is. Pros: It would get read instead of collecting virtual dust on my hard drive. Cons: My past expirience with small presses (as this publication would have to be) is that my work gets read by more reviewers than readers.
3. Self-publish it, either alone or bundled with my other Aphanasian stories. Pros: The story(ies) would get read instead of dusty. Cons: I don’t think I’m very good at selling my self-published work and I worry how a poor sales record would look when I finish my next project and start querying agents
4. Drawer it. This one doesn’t get a pros and cons, it gets an explanation. I’ve learned a lot working on this story. A lot. And I’m ready to start applying that to another project. Perhaps this is one story that gets to sit in my drawer for now and when I’m rich and famous (ha!) and have an existing readership (ahh my private vanity knows no bounds) I can pull it out, bundle it with some other Aphanasian stuff and sell it. On my own or through an agent.

Right now I am strongly leaning toward #4 but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I’m certainly not the most decisive person in the universe 🙂

In other, non-Shadows-related news, I’ve stepped down as the community leader of NaNoLJers. This wasn’t an easy decision but I think it was the right one. My friend Amber is going to take over and I think the community will benefit from the change, as will I. I’m still a member and plan to participate, but it was time to pass the torch.

Lastly, I have an exciting new writing project (I’m hoping it will be a novel, but after Shadow’s word count I’m just going to call it a ‘project’ for now LOL). I was going to write about it in this blog entry, but it’s running a little long (irony!) so I’ll save it for another day. Still, yay! 🙂