Update from a Self-Imposed 'Break'

I’ve had a lot of people ask me lately about my book, The Cube. First - THANK YOU! It means so much to me that so many people are invested in my journey. 

What I can say is that after the Chicago Writing Workshop, I put myself on a bit of a self-imposed #getpublished break. I needed to step back, take a deep breath, reassess my strategy, and enjoy the summer a little bit. It’s been good. And I’ve had a lot of fun summer adventures. 

Still, there has been some forward movement. 

• I’ve heard back from one of the three agents that asked for pages at the workshop. She passed on the book BUT she took the time to send me some very thoughtful notes. The notes included a lot of things she really liked about the pages, which I think is great. It just wasn’t for her. And I completely understand that. I’m realizing now that an agent has to love the book as much as you. So passing isn’t necessarily about whether your book is good or not. It’s about that ‘feeling.’  Even though she passed, I’m counting it as a win because she still saw its value. That’s awesome.
• I plan on reaching out to the other two sometime in September if I haven’t heard from them by then.
• I decided to have the same editor that proofread my query letter earlier this summer take a look at my re-write. He sent back some more great feedback. I’m very close. Just some small tweaks and I’ll have a much better version. I’m actually really looking forward to taking my new query out for a spin.
• And, I contributed to a Kickstarter where the award I chose was to have one of my favorite agents review/critique my query and my first five pages. Of course I have fantasies that he’ll want to scoop me up, but even just getting his input will be awesome. I believe that will also happen sometime in September. 

Up next, my hope is that I will get back to some more aggressive querying in the fall and I still hope to give myself a year of querying (which gives me until next spring). Then? Who knows. Maybe hybrid publishing? I’ll figure it out if need be. Honestly, I don’t want to think about alternatives yet. I want to visualize my goal. An agent. A publisher. My book on bookshelves. 

In the meantime, I’ve been focusing a lot on my channillo.com series Amache’s America. I really love where that story is right now. I think that when I’m done writing it on channillo, I may even pitch that to some agents. It would take a lot of rework to put it into a longer-form book format, but I think it’s a story that the world would love to read. 

And let me just say. The folks that do read it on channillo are SO NICE. Their feedback and support means the world to me too. And let me tell you, their writing rocks as well. So much goodness out there!

I haven’t worked on Samurai Prophecy in a little while, but my brain thinks about it all the time. 

I just published my 30th #WritersQuick5. THIRTY! Woot! Woot! Up next I’m going to do a ‘where are they now?’ special edition to highlight some of the amazing things that the writers I’ve featured have done just in the last few months. I love having a cohort of writers to follow and support. 

And, just as many of my writers on #WritersQuick5 write at work all the time, every day I’m writing away. This week I was drafting a whole series of notifications that will go out to the community. I love the sound of the keys clicking away on the keyboard. 

So yes, please continue to stay tuned. I have some more big life changes coming up that I hope will bring me back around to focusing on the writing mentioned above. 

As always, I remain optimistic and motivated.

Thanks everyone. Your support means the world to me. 

XOXO