In Which I Revise (Still)

So I'm revising Break Free. Scratch that. I've been revising Break Free for maybe 2 months? 3? I dunno, I'm a terrible estimator of time and I'm waaaaay too lazy to go look.

Okay I lied. I'm not that lazy. Okay wait. Yes I am, I'm just more curious than lazy. It's been just a little over 2 months say my records. Granted there were a few weeks in there where the day job was so so busy that there was no writing done at all. And also a week of vacay where the writing stuff was not done. But still, you get the idea.

Anyhoo, where I'm going with is, next week I have another week of vacay. Staycay actually. And by vacay I mean, not working at the dayjob. Instead twin and I will be working around the house. Preparing the veggie garden for winter, yard work, house repairs etc. So, you know, better than work, but still actually doing work.




True story: this is not our garden

I'm really, really close to finishing these rounds of revisions. And then I can send the MS to a few beta readers and hope they give me the sign off to send that baby back into the world. If not, it will be more revisions. It's not like I'm really in a hurry, but I kind of am in a bit of a timing crunch to get it back out as soon as possible for varying reasons that I won't get into because that's a whole post on it's own.

So for right now, my goal is to try and revise the shit out of the MS this week in the hopes that I can send it to beta readers and not have to worry about it on my staycay. And by worry about it, I mean, not have to worry about how I'm not revising because I'm tilling the garden or tevs.

So anyway, wish me luck!

How about you? Are you revising? Or writing? Or brainstorming? I want deets!

In Which I Share Good News

Yay! You're back! I'm glad to see it.

Because I have some fun news to share today!

What is it, you ask? What could it be?

Simple.

I sold my short story Hole Ridden!

Woot!!! That's right! I'm going to officially be a published author!!

It will be appearing in Dark Moon Digest #6, which should be available for purchase in early December. It will be available as an ezine at a later release date.

I'm super excited guys. It's nice to know that when I actually put in the work to get something published (this was the first story I actually submitted anywhere) it can happen.

This is, hands down, my favorite short story I've written. It's also the short story that people who have read it tend to remember the most. People refer to it as "the hole story", which is a pretty accurate description.

I've mentioned it in posts here, here, here and here (where it was picked as editor's choice on OWW).

In that third post, which was mostly about how my wordle cloud for it ended up being a creepy, ominous cloud that was a perfect visual representation for the story itself, Twin had stated that when it was published she would make me a nice frame with the wordle cloud.

Well, she didn't forget:

Yay! Thanks to everyone who's ever beta read it for me or offered me advice on dealing with submissions. YOU ARE ALL AMAZE BALLS. Glitter in the air for all!

In Which I Pop In

Hey all -

Mel Chelsey from Writings, Musings and Other Such Nonsense is looking for Beta readers.

If you'd like to help out, check her out HERE


ZOOM!

In Which I'm Back

Here I am, back from my week long blog hiatus. It was quite awesome, let me tell you and I accomplished a lot of stuff.





Things I got done last week:

1. Read 2 books (Ship Breaker was excellent)
2. Finished watching Veronica Mars (sadface that it's over.)
3. Got a good chunk of reading done on the two manuscripts I'm beta reading
4. Cleaned the house a bit.
5. Heard back from almost all my Beta Readers about Glimpse and have some good ideas for some changes.
6. Drew a picture (it's not done yet)


And that's about it, but that's not bad for a week away from blogging.

I also have to continue working on my "agents to query" list. I've gone through all the agents on agent query that rep both Fantasy and YA, (about 70) and now I'm working my way through the agents that have their genres just listed as YA. There's like another 250 of those.
Needless to say, it's a lot of agents to wade through.

So, how are things with you? Did I miss anything super exciting while I was away?

In Which I Search For Some Betas

Well, the time has come. I'm allllllmost done with my most recent line edit on Glimpse (just finishing up the whole "read backwards" edit. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a great way to edit each sentence on it's own merit)

The novel has been read by Twin, and by the sparkling (but not in a vampire sort of way) Hannah and is in the hands of my other Crit Partner Teebore. It's also been sent to a few non-writers (Brother and some fabulous friends) So, now it's time to reach out to the rest of my awesome blog pals.

I am looking for a few Beta Readers for my YA Fantasy Glimpse of Another Shore.

logline = A boy rescues an orphaned sea serpent and discovers a way to save his home from war.

My sea serpent is not this scary

Things I would require in a beta reader:

• I'm looking for someone who reads YA. I really need someone who has a good feel for the YA audience.
  
  
• You have to be willing to read the entire manuscript. I'll email the whole thing to you.
  
  
• You have to be willing to read the entire manuscript in a month or less. I want to give people time to read it, but I also want people who will be willing to commit.
  
  
• You have to be willing to answer a questionnaire sent with the manuscript. It's not a huge list of questions, but it'll be included with the email.

In return, I can beta read for you if you would like me to.

If you are interested and fit the criteria, either comment on this post or shoot me an email at sarah.ahiers (at) gmail.com. I'm looking for 2-3 peeps and I hope to hear from you.

Otherwise, how are you doing? Are you working with betas for your novel?