And... Onto Book 2!

 Hello and good morning. Except it's afternoon.

Actually, I think it's the start of the evening. Is 4pm evening? *shrug* It is when you wake at 330am for your 5am clients!

Anyway. Conduit of Fire is officially complete. The only thing that remains to be seen with it is for me to hire a professional editor and follow the publishing procedure--ASSUMING I don't get picked up by trad-pub. It has officially been 4-5 months since my last submission to the 3 folks prior to. No dice. I have 6 other names I can submit to, and I intend to, but it's weird how life interrupts your intention.

So the James River Writing Conference is coming up, and one of the agents I paid to speak with suggested I go to it. It will be about $400. The cost isn't the reason I'm deciding not to go. It is because 1) there's also the Hampton Roads Writing Conference I want to go to, and 2) it is also $400, and 3) [the main reason] I really want to have a full rough draft of my second book before I begin the publishing process for Conduit of Fire. I know trad-pub usually takes two years or more to publish once it is accepted by an editor (not just an agent), but this way, I will ensure I have a working draft of my second book before any publishing happens on my first book, wherein, let's say I don't get picked up by trad-pub and have to self-pub, then I will have one complete book under my belt, the draft of another on the way, so that by the time I would self-pub Conduit of Fire, I would have the second book hopefully near completion, and then I would begin, ideally, book number three, in which case I would self-pub in a 1-2 year "rapid fire" boom-boom-boom, "Hey, look I write books, and no, it doesn't take me forever to write them, even though, yes, it does." *deep breath* How's THAT for a run-on?! *mic drop*

No, this second book isn't a sequel to Conduit of Fire, though Tim, my husband, to whom I had to read aloud my book, because he doesn't read, said my book was very good and could easily have a sequel. All this to say: I still might write a sequel. I am unsure if it'd be a sequel or a prequel or an immediate sequel or one off in the future, but I do so love those characters and I already miss them, and to my fellow writers: IT IS HARD A.F. TO NOT JUST REGURGITATE THE SAME STORY. I find myself jaunting along in my second book, realize this MC is acting like the other MC, make a mental note to fix it, then carry on and change her mid-page. *Le sigh* It'll take practice. But hey! That's what's editing for.

Anyhow.

I still plan to submit my query to some agents as given to me from that other agent, and I plan to do so within this month so the queries can at least go to the agents... you know, within the same calendar year as the agent who referred me. *eyeroll* I swear, though, I trust in God's timing on this, because there is no reason I have dragged my feet on this, when I've wanted it so long and am so unafraid of rejection, it's almost laughable (have I told you that I've already been rejected by 30 agents? Granted, that was when I thought I was writing three books, and I still didn't know what I was doing, and I jumped the gun on submission years ago. I'm telling you: when you think you're done, you're not. Edit, edit, edit, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite!).

Okay. Anyway. I thought I was going to write today (I usually like to write Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, with any bonuses happening on the other days), but instead, I ended up writing expansive answers to FB questions from "Tell me your hardest question about Christianity" FB post I did the other day. It was great, actually. Wanted to have it be saved "for-ev-er" (said in the "Sandlot" voice), so I threw the answer to the first question up on this OLD OLD blog I had from way back when before I even moved into my house. Check it out. May you find the hilarity and embarrassment I do when I look back on my ten-years-or-more younger self.

I'll check back in more regularly. I... promise?

We'll see. Either way, I gotta get this platform up and running. Le sigh. Just another voice into the darkness. But I'll do it! I'll show up and I'll do the work. After all, that's how I wrote a book. So if I can do that, which is so much more work and takes so much more commitment, and if I can consistently wake up at 330am for work and still workout early even when I don't want to, am tired, sick, or otherwise, then I definitely can do this.

Okay. Ciao conduits.

Jess