Category: News

Hey everyone. I’m still here.

Last week my literary agent literally went out of business. After three years of minimal-to-no effort on his part, I probably wouldn’t have even known the difference, except that he takes with him the peace of mind attendant on a process of elimination occurring in the background. He wasn’t a particularly good representative, but at least he was able to get in the door with publishers who don’t interface directly with the hoi polloi. Now, it’s up to me to put in the submissions legwork once again.

So that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.

Over the weekend I gave A Sea Sought in Song its umpteenth editorial pass. I tweaked a few sentences here and there and caught a single typo in 116,600 words: I’d written “bad” when I meant “bag.” Now my debut novel is advancing once more into the breach, dear friends. I’m not through with this story—not by a long shot. I’m ready to forget the bad and get that bag.

Coincidentally, last month I finally made the incision and sunk my teeth into the second half of Book Three. Things are happening.

This story’s gonna make it outta my computer alive, whether by hook or by crook.

Hello there, nascent fandom! The work progresses! With Chapter Nine completed, Book Three has passed 75,000 words. For the first time in … what, a year? … I’ve finally pushed through to a blank page.

As those of you who’ve been keeping up with this blog know, late last year I paused partway through Chapter Nine to circle back through Book Three and integrate additional subplots. What’s news is that, after finally catching back up with myself, I proceeded to turn Chapter Nine into the longest chapter in my entire series thus far. But I’ve been assured it doesn’t feel long, because it’s mostly frenetic action!

Anyway, now for the first time in what feels like forever I can make a fresh incision on a blessedly featureless block. The next chapter will conclude Part One of Book Three. Each book contains two parts, and the part-break typically bridges some great tension or revelation. This next chapter will lead up to a deliciously stressful development. Exciting!

No news yet on the publishing front, but I’m not worried. All I need is a single bite. The “Seed of Glory Sown in Sorrow” saga will see the light of day one way or another.

Late last week I was informed that A Sea Sought in Song had been selected from out of a well-known publisher’s infamously vast slush pile “for closer examination.” This was a pleasant surprise, as it’d been eleven months since I’d deposited my manuscript in that particular quagmire. Who knows if it’ll make the next cut, or how long that might take, but I consider this a big achievement in any event.

Since I always try to pair my news reports with authorial insights, I’ll observe, in a spirit of undaunted uncertainty, that Book Three continues to progress elliptically. I’ll write a scene, think through its ramifications, then go back and rewrite one or two past scenes before circling back around to the front lines. I’m calling due a lot of the open-ended place-markers with which I’ve strewn my path, connecting heretofore-unseen dots, complexifying the narrative matrix. It’s slow going, but quite rewarding. A certain knowledge of future events has proven unnecessary to weave a tightly-plotted tale.

Kinda like in real life.

Excitement is afoot in Arlam!

First off, some big names are currently reading A Sea Sought in Song. Saying more would be imprudent at this point, but hopefully I’ll have positive news to report soon. Anything could happen.

Secondly, Book Three passed 55K words this past week, and continues to climb. A few months ago I realized that an encounter I’d begun describing carried more ramifications than I’d anticipated, and required additional setup. So I skipped back several chapters to insert several thousand words’ worth of character development, and have been working my way toward my last point of departure ever since. It’s going great. This section of the book involves a ton of exposition (at last, the answers you seek!), and it’s required my full attention to keep it from degenerating into a perfunctory data dump. But fear not: some of the revelations in Part One of Book Three count as the most thrilling stuff I’ve written to date, at least to me.

And yet I can’t wait for the upcoming scenes in Part Two. As characters begin to converge and subplots to commingle, this tale’s gonna blow wide open—slowing my progress with exponentially-expanding complexity.

But I did go ahead and write its epilogue already. That’s the second one of those I’ve tapped out on my phone whilst wedged into a seat on a crosscountry flight, so I guess that makes for a tradition. The strange, freefloating mental state engendered by being alone in a crowd at 30,000 feet has leant itself to the task of epilogue-writing, since the last two have been set so completely outside the normal parameters of the narrative.

I do feel similarly about my publication prospects at the moment. Things are happening, quite swiftly in some cases, but I can’t see out the windshield to anticipate what’s next. Instead I must content myself with awkward glances over a stranger’s shoulder at the unfamiliar terrain flowing past me far below. But such is life.