Hello, dreamers. I am now entering week three of my querying mission, and as I mentioned in my latest “Dear Sir or Madam” post, I’ve passed another milestone: my first rejection. That was followed swiftly by my second and third, but since then it’s been silent again. There’s a good chance I wont’ hear back from anyone else until early next month. In fact I may not hear back at all, but more on that later.

As we enter the home stretch of September, I’ve finally begun work on my next work-in-progress in earnest…more or less. As I mentioned in last week’s “WIP Wednesday”, I’m trying something new this time around, and it’s going very well. I’m finally digging into the lives (and heads) of my characters, and loving every second of it. But I’ve got my work cut out for me. In addition to working on Aquarius 1, I have multiple short story submissions ongoing, with more on the way. It’s gonna be a mad dash to October. So with that, here’s what I’ll be working on this week:

Aquarius 1

As planned, last week I began working on background shorts for the major characters of Aquarius 1. I began with Fazil, the MC’s best friend. Then I moved on to ship’s engineer Andrea Karembu. Today I’ll be starting another: either ship’s astronomer Song Haishen or Dauna Adkins, the commander.

I’m honestly surprised by just how much I’m enjoying this. I feel the characters coming alive as I’ve always wanted them to. It’s a great feeling. Of course, I currently have no plans to publish any of these (though never say never). But once I’m finished, these little snippets of the characters’ pasts will help to infuse the story with the kind of rich interiority I’m looking for.

The urge to just start writing grows stronger every day. Over the past week, I’ve been rethinking my opening chapters, considering introducing the initial tension earlier. If nothing else, it would be good to find a less formulaic starting point, as I did with Seven Days on Samarkand. I do have a rough framework in mind, but if anything, my back-and-forth only underscores the need to me to be patient. It’s not time to start writing the novel. Not yet. But soon.

Querying Seven Days on Samarkand

Three weeks, three rejections and counting. The first rejection really is a milestone. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself the first round likely won’t come to anything, there’s still a pang when you see some variation of “I just didn’t connect with this project.” But it gets easier over time. I told myself going in I didn’t expect to get an offer of representation (or even a full request) from the first round. Still, I had hoped. After all, I wouldn’t even be doing this if I was certain I would fail.

Though this round is far from over, I’m already thinking of ways I can improve my query materials, particularly my opening pages. I’ve been taking notes on feedback both from critique partners and agents I’ve queried, looking for ways to sharpen things before the next round.

In the end, you learn something from every rejection, and I’m not ready to give up. Not now. Hell, not ever. And I’m always learning new tricks. This evening, I’ll be launching my “Agent’s Guide” on my Twitter profile. Hopefully this will make things easier for agents who want to learn more about my platform. If nothing else it will help to further raise my profile. Anything to get my foot in the door.

Short Fiction

After a pair of (anticipated) rejections last week, I am currently at five active submissions. One of them has passed the 150 day mark, which means I could literally hear back any day now. And though another remains open, I have reason to believe it will be resolved within about a week.

For those new to my writing schedule, I have certain times of year when I step back from novel projects to focus on short fiction. Over the past year I’ve adopted a new process, in which I put off editing short stories until I have about five or six of them saved up. In any event, once I move back to novel projects, it’s submission time. I am currently in the midst of one of my submission windows.

Already, I have two more submissions scheduled for this evening, which will (barring any unforeseen news) bring me back up to seven actives. However, my current window is drawing to a close. Several markets I’ve subbed to have already closed for the year. And those that remain open will nonetheless likely be unreceptive to submissions over the coming months.

Thus, I find myself in a rare situation: one in which I may still have active manuscripts remaining when the window closes. I find that…distressing. Loose threads bother me. But, if nothing else, I’ll have stories ready to fire off when things open back up after the first of the year.

Upcoming Content

First and foremost, amid my return to active novel work, I’ve decided to retreat slightly from Substack for the time being. I discovered this past week I simply do not have the time and bandwidth to keep up with regular posting on multiple platforms, track submissions and queries, and still have time to actually write. Thus I plan to take some time and grow my Substack list, eventually using it as a mailing list. I’ve noticed a number of other writers doing the same thing. If you’re interested in joining my list, by all means hop over to Substack and subscribe. I still have a little Halloween Surprise planned for my subscribers.

That said, my weekly posting schedule here will remain unchanged. In this week’s “WIP Wednesday”, I’ll be providing an update on my ongoing background work, as well as my plans for the opening chapters of Aquarius 1. On Friday I’ll be resuming my long-running “The Cutting Room Floor” series of posts on my editing process. And on Sunday, my next “Dear Sir or Madam” post will tackle every writer’s least-favorite topic: dealing with rejection. Until then, dare to dream. – MK