I apologise that it has been quiet here on the blog. I had a very hectic July, writing wise, which I will talk about soon. I also had a bad run with the flu in July and August and was sick three times in five weeks. Because I was sick, I fell behind in blogging and reading, particularly my ARCs. I have a lot of ARCs I need to catch up on so I should be posting a lot of reviews in the near future.
July:
July ended up being one of the craziest months in my writing life so far.
I ended up sending THREE different manuscripts to THREE different publishers. It was not ideal, but they all decided to open at the same time and I didn’t want to miss any of the opportunities.
The first thing I submitted was Project Dragon Riders. My YA Christian fantasy. (I will do a post with more info about this in the future). I have had this ready to query since December last year. I had been waiting for my dream literary agent to open to queries and send it to her, but she hadn’t opened yet. Since she hadn’t opened, I sent it to Quill and Flame when they opened (They were opening for July only).
I had to write a query letter, shorten my synopsis and double check my first three chapter, and then I sent it off.
Next was Project Dolsa. A middle grade fantasy. My favourite publisher here in Australia opened their submissions for middle grade (during the month of July only). I completed Project Dolsa back in 2017 and did query it then. I had some manuscript requests but didn’t end up being successful. I pulled it out when I heard they were opening and edited it. After the edit I polished up the first 5k, which is what I had to submit, worked on the query and synopsis, and submitted it.
The third manuscript I submitted was my contemporary Christian romance that I had entered into the Love Inspired Author Search. I made it into round two which meant I had to send them the full manuscript by August 1st. I wanted to send it in by July 30th just to be safe.
I completed draft three on July 19th. I then rested it. I wanted to do a proofread before I sent it. I got sick with Influenza A on the 27th. I was feeling slightly better on the Thursday and was able to get the proofread done and my manuscript submitted on July 31st.
I also added approx. 7k words to the novella I’m working on to giveaway when I start my newsletter.
It was extremely hectic but I was happy I was able to get everything submitted that I wanted to.
August:
My Influenza started getting better, but then I got a secondary infection which meant I got worse and spent half of August sick.
The second half I decided to take it slow as I recovered.
I wrote, edited and submitted a flash fiction piece to Havok.
I started proofreading my middle grade in case the publisher wants a full manuscript. I have been doing one chapter a day (except on Sundays).
My teen wanted me to write them a story for their birthday so I have also been working on that.
A much more relaxed August than July, which is what I needed.
That’s it for now. How did your reading or writing go for July and August? Let me know in the comments.
Rochelle L. Sharpe 