The last month has been extremely busy and exhausting – so much that even banging out quick updates for this blog became daunting.

But that’s over. I’m still recuperating, but at least I’m going into the weekend rested enough that working on my writing will be plausible.

So, what are the plans for the next few weeks?

First, I need to do some maintenance on my query spreadsheet – I need to figure out how many of my queries are still live, and who are my next targets. Then I’ll write a long overdue query report (which will probably be depressing, but oh well.)

I’m also going to reread Book the First. It won’t be a full editing pass (although I’ll surely do some edits) but I need to get it back in mind, because I’m considering a few smallish changes. Specifically, I wrote a short prologue that serves as a framing device, and judging from the feedback I received from agents, it’s not working all that well. I want to see if it’s necessary or not to the story.

And while I’m at it, I should probably give the first three chapters another thorough editing pass (and especially chapter 1.) They’re good, but not great, and apparently great is what’s needed to hook agents.

That’s going to be hard, unexciting work, so I’ll keep working on my other books as well. Unless my schedule takes another hit, I think I could have a Shitty First Draft done by late August.

So that’s what I’m looking toward.