Hello, dreamers. I’m back.

At long last, work has resumed on my current work-in-progress, Dawn of the Pioneers, and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s going. Yesterday, I finally sat down and reworked portions of the story, and I’m immensely pleased with how it went. I haven’t been this excited about something I’ve written since The Pioneers.

While the new direction is encouraging, I have a lot of work ahead of me. Due to my stumbling near the end of the summer and a brief break after Pitch Wars began, I’m well behind schedule on Dawn of the Pioneers. At this point, it may be unrealistic to expect to finish the first draft by the end of the year. But, regardless, I intend to press on. As I always say, the work of an aspiring writer is never done. That said, here’s what I’ll be doing this week:

Dawn of the Pioneers

What a difference a week makes.

It’s hard to believe that only a few days ago I was beginning to wonder if I was ready to write this story. Everything felt wrong. The plot felt rushed, I had characters who were underdeveloped and paid lip service. I knew exactly where I was going, but had no idea how to get there.

Amidst difficulties advancing the plot, I briefly considered scrapping it altogether, pursuing an entirely new storyline from here on. That still didn’t feel quite right, so for a few days I actually considered shelving Dawn of the Pioneers, perhaps giving Pathfinder another shot. But in the end, I decided to at least try and revise what I’d written thus far. And it all boiled down to a single character.

The character in question was a very recent addition to the plot, so recent that he’s not even included in my concept notes. The character was introduced because he was a cool idea: someone from a marginalized group, wise and eager for a fight. I liked him, but something just didn’t work.

In the end, the problem was his backstory. The character in question was Lakota; originally, he was written as an advance scout looking for a new homeworld for his people. I had a lot of cool stuff I could do with him, but ultimately the issue was that the plot, as I’d planned out, didn’t revolve around him. There were too many questions and not enough time to answer them. In the plot I’d laid out I didn’t have time to properly develop his character, and the more I looked at it, the more I realized I couldn’t develop his character properly unless I basically made the entire story about him.

As such, he felt rushed. He was shoehorned into the plot, paid lip service because his personal subplot would get in the way of everything else. What’s worse, another character (a female character) was essentially fridged just to make room for him. None of it was working. It all felt too rushed. In the end, the simple fact of the matter was that in order to introduce this character properly, I would have to devote too much time to someone who didn’t really factor much into the rest of the book. It couldn’t work.

Removing Coyate was a tough decision, but it worked out beautifully. It gave the previously-fridged character a chance to shine, and become part of the team. And it set things up perfectly for the early introduction of a far more important character: one who was integral to the plot. Add to that yet another strong female character, and suddenly I have myself one hell of a Phase 1 for this book.

While the new content has been only lightly-edited, I’m excited. I’m thrilled with what I’ve written over the past few days, and now have a much clearer path forward. As it turns out, the next phase will go as I’d originally intended, with only minor changes. While I still have some research to do, I should begin writing Phase 2 by Wednesday. Of course, that means I’m more than a month behind my original timetable. I hope to make up for lost ground by working through October. Unfortunately, that means I’ll likely put my return to short fiction on hold. But Dawn of the Pioneers is currently my first priority.

The Pioneers

As of this writing, we’re nearly a month into the Pitch Wars process, and less than a month from the announcement of mentees. Unfortunately, also as of this writing I’ve yet to receive any requests for my full manuscript. This is mildly disappointing, but hardly unexpected. I’ve spent a little time over the past week wondering what I might have done better. Was it my query letter? My synopsis? In the end, such questions are meaningless at this point.

For the time being, I’ve decided to leave The Pioneers and all associated documents alone, and let the Pitch Wars process run its course. While I doubt I’ll garner any interest at this point, I feel a professional obligation to refrain from making any changes to my material until I know for certain that I won’t be chosen. If nothing else, it means Dawn of the Pioneers will get my full and undivided attention, just as The Pioneers did at this time last year.

Once Pitch Wars is complete, however, it will in fact be time for some rethinking. Luckily, in most all respects I feel I’m better-equipped to tackle the challenge of querying this year with The Pioneers than I was last year with Wide Horizon. This pertains not only to feeling I have a better manuscript to shop around, but also to experience and an invaluable group of fellow writers to help me refine my query and synopsis.

This time around I plan to be more thorough: I’ll be passing my query letter, synopsis, and even my manuscript around to a few trusted CPs before I make my first query. As for when, precisely, that first query will take place, I don’t have a timetable in place yet. Last year I’d planned to wait until after the first of this year to begin querying Wide Horizon. As it happened, I grew impatient, and sent my first queries out shortly after finishing The Pioneers.

Ultimately, when querying begins will likely depend on two factors: when I finish Dawn of the Pioneers, and how long it takes for my CPs to help me refine my query letter and synopsis to the point where I find them presentable. So, stay tuned.

Website Revamp

“But you just did a revamp a few months ago!” – some of my regular readers, no doubt.

And yes, I did. But fear not, dear reader: I’m every bit averse to changes as you are. It bears noting that since 2015 I have made major changes to my site all of three times, changed the theme twice, and I have no intention of doing so again so soon. No, this revamp isn’t so much a major theme change as a general facelift. With querying just around the corner and NaNoWriMo approaching fast, I feel the need to clean up my site a bit.

It takes time to build a platform, establish a brand, and develop a standardized format for posts. I’ve taken my time in doing so, and over the years things have gotten messy. Perhaps this is to be expected, but I am a compulsive individual and I abhor disarray. Thus, this has bothered me for some time, and this week I plan to start doing something about it.

For the most part, this general cleanup will involve simple things: making pictures on posts uniform, making sure posts have pictures (vitally important in my current format), and likely deleting superfluous posts. Following the first draft of Wide Horizon, I went through a directionless period: amidst my frustration with Pathfinder I began flitting between ideas, and generated a lot of incongruous posts in the process. Over time, I’ve come to feel these posts detract from the overall continuity of my site. And while new readers and prospective agents may not read far enough back to find said posts, I know they’re there, and they bother me.

The other goal of this cleanup is working on past short fiction pieces. Over the years, I’ve posted a decent amount of short fiction on this site, some of which I’m incredibly proud of (most notably Focus). However, while I carefully edit any short fiction pieces I intend to publish, most of the work that ends up here is either written specifically for this site or posted after I decide not to seek publication. As such, much of what I’ve posted here over the years was lightly-edited, if at all. Chances are, new readers and prospective agents alike will be searching for any short fiction I’ve posted here. I need to put my best foot forward.

I had intended to do this just prior to Pitch Wars (and actually started the process), but my frustration with Dawn of the Pioneers took the wind out of my sails. Now, I plan to take some time to do it right, and do it completely.

Speaking of short fiction, I would like to post a Halloween short story this year, but as my job takes precedence, my time is limited. Maintaining a laser-focus on Dawn of the Pioneers will take up most of it, and given that we’re already halfway through October, I’m not sure it’ll happen this week. But I’ll see if I can come up with something.

So as it turns out, I have a busy October ahead of me. But I’m confident in my direction, and eager to press on. For now, keep reading, and as always, dare to dream. – MK