So what next?

The synopsis is written, and just as well as my agent e-mailed me midweek asking for it so he could send it to one of the remaining publishers who have my contemporary fantasy novel. I sent it on its way on Thursday. I can’t really say whether it is a good synopsis (is there such a thing?) but it is certainly detailed and probably too long. Writing it required me to reread the novel, and I came away thinking that it is actually pretty good. I find the process of writing a novel leaves me far too close to it to tell whether it is any good or not. I have to leave it a while, get a bit of distance from it before I can judge. Now that I have that distance I’m happy with it.

So what to write next?

I have 4 options – carry on the sequel to contemporary fantasy novel (novel 2) in the hope that it still might get picked up.

 – restart work on the sequel to novel 1 (old adventure fantasy novel). This is the easiest to do, but probably the worst option.

– pick up on the start of the epic fantasy I was working on before novel 2. I’ve just reread the 12k words I have of this and while it is good, I’ve forgotten what I intended to have happen with several of the threads. Might be worth the effort though 

– start something new. I have the start of a novel, but it doesn’t feel ready yet. I’m reluctant to dive in without a bit more of the story.

So what should I do?

Writers’ least favourite job

So I’ve rewritten the last chapter of novel 1 – the adventure fantasy novel – and sent it off to my agent and you know what? The ending is better now. I wasn’t sure before I reread it that it needed changing, but he was right; the new version is superior. 

That done I’m now doing that job that every writer hates. Correct! I’m writing a synopsis of the contemporary fantasy novel. And it is a pain. I’ve had to skim read the whole novel to do this and I’m pretty happy with the story; but the synopsis? The recitation of the major events – that sucks. I don’t know anyone who claims to like doing this or does it well, but we all have to. 

World Fantasy Con and other stuff

I’ve been pretty busy since my last blog entry. I went to the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton which was fab (though the bar was a little too noisy for easy conversation). I met a lot of people in person I had only previously met online, acquired a load of books, went to panels, did a reading as part of the pirate pop-up programming and, mostly importantly, had a talk with my agent. We have accumulated a stack of rejections for my novel that has been on submission since January. This is damn disappointing. It is a good novel but times are hard in the publishing world; in the words of Sir Terry Pratchett (who was at the con) “so hard you could use it for horseshoes”. There are a handful of publishers who haven’t yet replied, so they have to be chased up, and I was able to connect with some smaller publishers who it would be worth sending to, so I’ll have to write a synopsis 😦  I’m also going to have a look at my previous novel and tweak the ending so that it can be sent out again. There are new players in the market who didn’t see it when it went around 5/6 years ago, and the success of ‘Game of Thrones’ has made secondary world adventure fantasy a desirable commodity again. I’m also going to have to start developing another idea. This is a scary thought, akin to looking up at another distant mountain peak and contemplating climbing it. Right now, I’m not sure what that idea is going to be.

My long-time crit pal Patrice Sarath has been visiting with her husband. She came over for WFC as she has a new novel to sell, and we’ve been doing touristy things since the convention ended. We’ve just got back from fulfilling her wish to see some real castles. For me that means Edward I’s great monuments in North Wales so yesterday we went over Conway Castle. Why yes, it did rain; it’s Wales in November after all. We had a really nice trip, stayed in a lovely pub, ate some great meals, drank some good beer and saw some beautiful countryside. Tomorrow its back to work for me, they’re off to Paris.