Hello, dreamers. I’ve got a big week ahead of me.

With the month of May passing, I’m up against the clock. My goal is to be ready to send out my next round of queries for The Ursa Frontier by the end of the month. What’s more, I also need to get to work on my primary goal every late spring: selecting my next novel project, so I can devote the summer months to research and notes.

What that means, essentially, is that I need to make significant headway toward completing my new draft of The Ursa Frontier by the end of this week. Or finish it by then, ideally. That will allow me to devote the final week of May to editing, and finally writing a fresh query letter and synopsis. I have a lot of work to do. So with that in mind, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

Querying The Ursa Frontier

It has been nine weeks since I sent out my first round of queries, and all three of the agents I queried through QueryTracker have responded. That just leaves the ones who don’t use the system. Though I’ll double-check, I believe it’s standard practice to allow at least ten weeks before giving agents a nudge. And realistically I probably won’t do that until my second round of queries go out.

And that, of course, brings me to my primary project right now.

As planned, early last week I stepped back from The Ursa Frontier to reassess. I combed through my notes, which had ballooned and grown increasingly chaotic over the past few weeks. I started paring back the mountain of small, likely superfluous alterations I’d considered. And instead I began focusing on the overall direction of this story amid the split.

And, I do believe I now know how to wrap this story up properly. This weekend I began writing a new chapter, which I intend to be the penultimate chapter of this first installment. Ultimately, I decided to revisit a chapter that had originally been cut from the first draft. Only this time, realizing I’m writing a multi-POV story, I decided to split the chapter between the three main characters. The results thus far have felt much better, and I’m excited to finish the chapter tonight.

Where I go from there will largely depend on how this chapter unfolds. My current tentative plan is to end the story with Holmes, possibly with Nina, returning to the surface. While I’d originally considered ending the book with the initial planetfall of the settlement, now I’m thinking of stopping it just short. And I have something particularly raw and gristly planned instead.

For now, I intend to begin the week focusing on the final chapters. Once those are complete, I’ll have a better idea of what to do with the previous passages. Beyond drawing things to a satisfying close, I have plans to expand one chapter of Phase 2 into two chapters. While I plan to incorporate some rich worldbuilding (with plenty of alien dinosaurs), this is being done mainly to break up what has become an uncomfortably long sequence of dialogue between Holmes and Nina. The original dialogue, which has become the second half of the passage, feels less impactful now that it’s tacked on to the end of a lengthy stretch of backstory. My hope is that by splitting it off into a subsequent chapter, I’ll be able to get some of that punch back, and better set up the harrowing events of the chapter that follows.

I am still mulling over a few changes that would have minimal impact on the story itself, but would instead significantly alter the backstory. This includes potentially pushing the timeline forward by up to twenty years, and making minor changes to several character names. The timeline change in particular would have minimal impact on this story, but could drastically alter future projects.

Lastly, I am considering changing the title…again. For my frequent readers who probably have a hard time keeping up (“So it’s called Pioneers? Or Dawn of the Pioneers? What’s The Ursa Frontier?”), I am deeply sorry. But in today’s publishing world, where so many readers browse for books online, selecting a distinctive title is more important than ever. Please bear with me.

My Next Project

While I’m still focusing on The Ursa Frontier, it’s May, so I can’t help but look ahead to what comes next. Unfortunately, that decision is no longer completely up to me.

It’s understood that the first question an agent will ask an author after agreeing to represent them is “So what else are you working on?” The fact is, in today’s literary world (especially in genre fic) no agent is looking to publish just one book. Particularly in sci-fi, agents are hoping to have a long-running series of novels to sell. And it’s easier to sell a series to potential publishers if at least one of the subsequent installments is either complete or nearly so.

So it would make sense, once The Ursa Frontier is complete, to immediately move on to the next installments. But that might not be such a good idea, as there’s still the possibility of “striking out”. “Striking Out” as I call it, means you’ve queried every agent who could possibly represent your book, and all have rejected it. Once that happens, your book can no longer be your first novel. It could still be published, eventually. But in order to find an agent, you need to write a new book and query that one instead.

Now, I’ve been repeatedly assured by writers with experience in the publishing world that the chances of me striking out with The Ursa Frontier are remote. And I’ve received enough praise for the story that at this point I think I actually believe that. But the possibility remains. And if The Ursa Frontier strikes out, there’s little value in trying to query a subsequent installment of the same series, which would make no sense without the context of the previous ones.

As such, I’m facing a dilemma. Once The Ursa Frontier is complete, I could immediately pick up work on the next installments, in hopes that at least one agent will be sufficiently impressed with my query. Or I could hedge my bets and star working on another project set in the same fictional universe, but not directly related to (and thus dependent on) The Ursa Frontier.

The good news (I suppose) is that it’s not even summer yet, and I wouldn’t actually begin writing a new novel until late summer at the earliest. So I’ve got several months of real estate. A lot can happen in several months. But as soon as the proverbial ink is dry on The Ursa Frontier, I will be firmly focused on this decision.

Thus, lately I’ve been thinking a bit about my potential next projects. In particular, I’ve been taking another look at Aquarius 1. By the end of this week, I’ll likely be looking at necessary research, lining up objectives for the summer. I may even do some test writing before the end of the month. A lot of things are up in the air right now.

New Content

As of last week, I’ve adopted my new posting regimen. That, however, is still a work in progress. My readership dropped noticeably for my first weekend post. I’ll likely be playing with release times over the coming weeks to see what works. If you’re one of my frequent readers, by all means reach out to me and let me know when you prefer to read WordPress posts during the week. You can comment on this post, or contact me directly. I’m always happy to hear from my readers.

For now, watch for my next “Pioneers Sessions” post on Wednesday, where I’ll be discussing the potential ramifications of changing the timeframe of my stories. And starting this week, my weekly features will become “Friday Features”, which will be published at 11:30 AM every Friday. This week I’ll be reviewing All Systems Red by Martha Wells: book one of the Murderbot Diaries, which has now been adapted into an original series on Apple TV+. And I’ll be resuming my “Dear Sir or Madam” posts starting this Sunday. Until then, dare to dream. – MK