About to end “Revision”

Revision Week 8

Ok, I’m starting to feel a little bad about these last few posts. My thesis is sort of on hold. I’m pleased with the first half of the book and the second half has no feedback. While there are swathes of the second half that I’m itching to rewrite… I don’t know if I’m being overly critical (and I AM my worse critic) or if they are actually good?

What I really need is someone willing to read the last half of the book… or at the least maybe the last 20k or so of the book. (Though I do feel that if someone reads only the very end of the book they would be confused and at a loss).

Last Week:

So, the week was not spent working on the thesis… it was spent watching the second Impeachment and painting. Like I mentioned in last week’s post, we are living in interesting times. And personally, I would rather make some cool minis and interact with people on Facebook and Instagram, then watch the political chaos tearing my country apart.

I already have high blood pressure and other health concerns and frankly I can only watch so much of the news before my rage makes me see black spots and I need to calm down.

Now, despite not working on the thesis, I did do some writing. After receiving feedback on one of my journals for class, my teacher has talked me into writing a few essays and trying to place them with a literary magazine.

(I’m not name dropping yet because I am superstitious enough to think that if I name them, I will get rejected and then make a fool of myself when I have to report the rejection. I mean I will still report the rejection to you readers, but I won’t advertise who the rejection came from).

This Week & School

This is the week when I make the push for my finals, technically I have three weeks to produce everything. But I need to put together my final portfolio (all of the components are already done, but I need to revise three of them… actually four of them. I need to add in the revised ending to my outline).

Besides the portfolio I need to turn in the full manuscript and then also write a reflection essay on the entire program (even though I still have one term left with 2 final classes).

S.A.D. (Seasonal Affect Disorder)

Let’s take it personal for a few. Normally I enter December and the rest of winter in a very low mood. Usually down right depressed and angry, and very much not super productive. Though I do tend to paint a lot in January and February because my last job used to lay me off for the winter and the only way I made money was painting. (Though my teacher keeps constantly saying that short stories and essays can earn me equal or more money if I just knock out a few of them… I really wish I knew her markets that so easily pay so much).

I’m digressing. Usually, winter and the holidays are a very tough time for me and I don’t like being around people and I basically just want to be alone and not very productive. But, in the last three years, school has really helped me with this. Now, I will admit that my out put in the winter is not as good or as easy as the rest of the year, but over-all my mental health while at school has improved greatly.

Even with the pandemic… as sad as the holidays were, I still managed to have a good time. And, so far, have maintained a fairly upbeat attitude… even with all the “historical” crap happening.

My Hope

My hope is that everyone is starting to feel better. Things are looking up… yeah 2021 did not start with a BANG, but did we really think that 2020 would just disappear on New Year’s Eve? No. It would pull some extra stuff and take a few weeks to GTFO.

With everything sucking and all this bad news happening, I do want to point out that there is a lot of good also happening at the same time. Things are trending toward a more positive light, and I can only see them getting better in the near future.

Vaccinations are happening and they’re going to double, triple, with the emergency and FEMA call ins that rolling out right now. Production is being ramped up.

Are the next few months going to be super hard? Yes. But are we finally starting to do something about it? Yes. Adults are back in the room and there is a lot to look forward to this year.

Where is this Blog going?

Specifically, this Thesis Diary page is still going forward. The Plan is to take it to Agent Queries. Since the Agent query process is going to be: Send out 5 emails, wait 6 weeks, send out five more, repeat until I get an agent. There won’t be a lot to talk about in weekly posts.

BUT… I don’t want to stop the weekly posts. So, while it will still be under the title of “Thesis Diary” (I might look and see if I can retitle the section, but I don’t think wordpress will let me?) the next few posts will be about essays and outlining the next series of books.

You all have about 1or 2 essays to look forward to in the next couple weeks. And then I’ll start talking about the series and about how I know I might get called out for copying another great writer. But truth be told the ideas I’m writing about I created back in the mid-90s when I was a teenager. (Incidentally the author I’m worried I’ll be compared to also created his world back in the 80/90s when he was in his late 20’s early 30’s).

The point I’m making is the main thrust of my story—an invasion from peoples from an outer plane into the material world—was role played in games I ran years before the first book was published by “unnamed author” and really the only thing similar between the two stories is the race that is doing the invasion in both books. Also, his book doesn’t really have them invading, so much as ruling an entire continent and being a nuisance.

Outro

The next few posts will be about the essay and the outlines for the novel I’ll be starting shortly. I’m not planning on starting my querying until Spring possibly as late as May… but really it comes down to when my first choice of agent opens her schedule. I want to send my first five queries to people I’ve started to get to know over the last year.

You know what, next week will definitely have me talking about Agents and how I chose them and all of that. I knew nothing about how to query an agent until about 2 years ago in my Undergrad, and I still feel I know nothing. So, you’ll all have a good time.

Next week, Essays and Agents, the week after we’ll talk outlining a series and then get started on the first novel of what I call the Invasion.

See you all then.