the journey

The brave MFA students at Seton Hill University are smack in the middle of their winter residency right now. Good luck to them. Maybe the notice is too short, but tonight at 7:00pm is the big public event. This year Kevin Hearne will be talking about "The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of Epic Fantasy & What Other Genres Can Learn From It" and then signing books. If you're in Greenberg PA, get on over to Cecilian Hall in the Seton Hill Main Administration building! It should be fun.

As we settle into a new writing year, I'm trying to make the most of it. What did I learn from 2012? Sadly, at the end of 2012, one of my longtime critique partners quit critique group and quit writing. :( I have to respect his decision;it must be what's right for him. At the opposite extreme, another one of my longtime critique partners has an awesome new novel coming out in February 2013 from Nightshade Books. They both started writing seriously at about the same time, and they're both good writers. But they had very different outcomes. I guess you never know what's going to happen.

So, I'm enjoying my writing journey. I revised and submitted a new short story this week. I noticed that I have about five different stories out to various pro markets. I do think my short stories are better than they used to be.
I've gotten some agent rejections for novels this week, but I did get one partial request. I totally revamped/revised a novel I just started and sent the first three chapters out to one of my critique groups. (Sorry, guys!) I realized another novel I'm working on is at 70,000 words and I better quit meandering around and get to the finish line. I backtracked six chapters and revised; I think it's headed in a much better direction.
I got a lot of my editor work done this week. I got my blog posts done this week. I submitted a bunch of proposals for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) annual conference next summer. And I got ready for my critique group meeting tonight.

Good luck with your journey!