Jessica Steiner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jessicasteiner) wrote2014-02-22 10:28 am
jessicasteiner) wrote2014-02-22 10:28 am
Entry tags:
Reading and Writing Update
I often have a hard time thinking of things to say here. Often things just seem like same-old-same-old, and I'm just poking along at the things I've been poking along at for months. But at the same time, I'm happy with the progress I'm making. I guess it's time to do an update and round-up.
I'm working on my fifth draft of OtherWhere, doing line edits, tightening the language, obliterating adverbs and unnecessary, redundant wordiness. I'm really happy with it, though I totally don't understand how people can finish this kind of thing in a month or two. After an hour of this stuff, I start skimming and have to stop.
Once I get this part finished, I'll be sending it out to (more) agents and also beta readers. Maybe that'll happen in March. I HOPE it'll happen in March.
I'm also poking around at various other projects without a tonne of focus, just doing whatever I feel like at any given moment. I expect to release my Motivation course by the end of February, though I'm eyeing the date right now and wondering if that's realistic. If not, then it'll be the first or second week of March.
I've been doing a lot more reading as well, which I consider to be really important. I started reading the collected works of Sherlock Holmes, because I've gotten really into Elementary, BBC Sherlock, and the RDJ movies as well, and I had gotten very interested in connecting with the source material, which I had never read. I remember picking it up once when I was probably 12 years old, saw Sherlock shooting up cocaine and went "Hang on, this isn't what I thought it was", but this time I've been really enjoying it.
Thing is, I had to interrupt because I needed to read some short stories. I've written a story I intend to submit to Crossed Genres magazine for their April deadline (Theme: Time travel!), but I haven't read a lot of short stories in recent years. I picked up Dangerous Women, which is an anthology of short stories that cover many genres, by many of the giants in speculative fiction - we're talking Jim Butcher, George R.R. Martin, and Brandon Sanderson. I figure I can learn some things from them. I'm enjoying the stories very much, and learning a lot about structure, and when that's done I'll be finishing off Sherlock Holmes.
Unless I get distracted by the three books I bought today, whoops.
I'm working on my fifth draft of OtherWhere, doing line edits, tightening the language, obliterating adverbs and unnecessary, redundant wordiness. I'm really happy with it, though I totally don't understand how people can finish this kind of thing in a month or two. After an hour of this stuff, I start skimming and have to stop.
Once I get this part finished, I'll be sending it out to (more) agents and also beta readers. Maybe that'll happen in March. I HOPE it'll happen in March.
I'm also poking around at various other projects without a tonne of focus, just doing whatever I feel like at any given moment. I expect to release my Motivation course by the end of February, though I'm eyeing the date right now and wondering if that's realistic. If not, then it'll be the first or second week of March.
I've been doing a lot more reading as well, which I consider to be really important. I started reading the collected works of Sherlock Holmes, because I've gotten really into Elementary, BBC Sherlock, and the RDJ movies as well, and I had gotten very interested in connecting with the source material, which I had never read. I remember picking it up once when I was probably 12 years old, saw Sherlock shooting up cocaine and went "Hang on, this isn't what I thought it was", but this time I've been really enjoying it.
Thing is, I had to interrupt because I needed to read some short stories. I've written a story I intend to submit to Crossed Genres magazine for their April deadline (Theme: Time travel!), but I haven't read a lot of short stories in recent years. I picked up Dangerous Women, which is an anthology of short stories that cover many genres, by many of the giants in speculative fiction - we're talking Jim Butcher, George R.R. Martin, and Brandon Sanderson. I figure I can learn some things from them. I'm enjoying the stories very much, and learning a lot about structure, and when that's done I'll be finishing off Sherlock Holmes.
Unless I get distracted by the three books I bought today, whoops.