Hello, dreamers. It’s been six weeks since I sent out my first queries. The radio silence is unsettling. I keep reminding myself that literary agents are busy people. That the chances of all my first round queries ending in CNR are remote. But for now, the waiting continues.

However, there’s still a lot to do. I have two novel projects, character notes, and tons of research to keep myself occupied. That said, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

The Ursa Frontier

As I mentioned earlier, it’s now been six weeks since my first queries went out. No news is good news at this point has become my personal mantra. The replies will come.

Over the past week, however, I again shifted gears. Given the amount of background work needed for Children of Other Earths, and all the work I’m doing expanding The Ursa Frontier, I’ve decided to pause principal writing on the new project for the time being. To be fair, I seldom do actual writing on a novel project at this time of year, for a lot of good reasons. And last week the “Castle Bravo” project really took off.

I finished my latest interiority sweep this past Friday. After allowing myself to dig deeper into my characters’ minds, expanding vital conversations, and providing more rich background for the main characters, I found I’d added…around 13,000 words. Which really isn’t anywhere near as much as I’d expected.

It’s a strange feeling: for the first time in years, I’m looking at a book that’s actually too short. And as I neared the end of the interiority sweep, a new subplot began to form. I finally have the real estate necessary to delve more deeply into the thing that truly makes this story unique: the detailed biosphere of an alien world.

My goal over the coming week is two-fold. First and foremost, I plan to write several new scenes and at least one new chapter, showing off the biosphere and giving readers what I’m sure they’ll really want: more dinosaurs. Second, I’m going to be working on “disruptions”.

“Disruptions” is the term I use for small scene details introduced to break up (disrupt) a scene while enriching it for the reader. For example, during a scene in my novelette Prishelets (which recently won honorable mention in “Writers of the Future”), early on there is a tense scene where the main character is watching Soviet scientists attempting to contact aliens. As he watches, I mention a scientist that breaks his pencil, cursing under his breath.

That tiny tidbit appears at first to be pointless. But with a single sentence, I expand the reader’s view of the scene, while also inducing tension. Disruptions can be a powerful tool, and I feel they’ve been sorely underutilized in The Ursa Frontier. So, amid writing entirely new scenes and chapters this week, I’ll be going back over everything, finding places to disrupt the scene so as to really pull the reader into the story.

Every change brings this story closer to what I’ve always known it could be, what it should be. And though everything I’m doing will surely necessitate another full editing pass once all is said and done, I’m confident that when the next round of queries comes, I’ll have a much better, fuller product to pitch to prospective agents.

Everything Else

And of course I have a lot more to do. I currently have a story on sub (to Writers of the Future), and am planning to make at least two submissions to literary mags over the coming week. And I’m going continue working on Children of Other Earths. However, I’d like to make a quick note on my self-pub works.

For those who have been looking forward to more self-pub work, I’m afraid I have some bad news. For various reasons (mostly related to my querying), I’ve decided to suspend all my current self-pub projects indefinitely. Wide Horizon and The Envoy will remain available on Amazon and elsewhere, but my other self-pub works will be pulled from the shelves.

The fact is, in order to be truly successful in self-pub today, one must put the bulk of one’s efforts into it. And as I dive back into the Dotiverse, it’s become clear to me that this will be the focus of my efforts from now on. I’m going all-in on The Ursa Frontier and the various series it will spawn, and frankly I don’t have the time or bandwidth necessary to do both. I am still considering future collections of short fiction, but for now, I’m laser-focused on my novel projects. Trad-pub has always been my overarching goal. It’s time to make that happen.

New Content

On Wednesday, I’ll be discussing the latest developments on the Castle Bravo project. Also, this Saturday watch for my first “Saturday Feature”, which will be my review of Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey. I’ll also be making a new “Dear Sir or Madam” post on Sunday, in which I’ll be talking about what comes next after a round of queries. Until then, dare to dream. – MK