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 | | My YA Journey – Week 3 by Ron Estrada | |
[size=48]My YA Journey – Week 3[/size] june 15, 2014 by ron leave a comment
A new wireless keyboard and stack o’ MG “research” for my Father’s Day gift to myself.
With only two weeks left in my plotting and outlining schedule for Now I Knew You, I received an e-mail from an agent on Friday. Unusual for me as I haven’t submitted much lately. Of course, I checked her web page and the site of the agency she said she was from. And since she didn’t ask for a reading fee or offer to send me $1billion in Zimbabwe funds, I determined she was the real McCoy (though, honestly, I’ve never met a McCoy so I’m not sure I could differentiate between a real McCoy and a false one).
We had a nice chat back and forth via e-mail. She’d been seeing me around the blogosphere and determined I wasn’t just screwing around with my writing hobby. Yes, agents do go scouting from time to time.
So I told her about Now I Knew You because her primary interest is YA and MG (Middle Grade). But she also said something else that grabbed my attention: MG is coming into its Golden Age, just as YA had recently.
Mind you, I’m just getting into the youth writing, so I’m open to suggestions. I love a good story and half the books I’ve been reading (and loving) lately would fall into MG. There are differences between MG and YA, mostly with the characters and how they perceive their world. But, like my wife said after we talked about it, a good book is a good book.
I don’t know if I’ll end up with this agent or not. I’m still trying to figure out the self-publishing thing. My goal is to go hybrid. Writing some for a trad publisher and some self-published. This seems to be a common career option these days.
I also made myself a production schedule last week. I wondered what it would take to write six books a year. A tough road for a full time writer. But a part timer like me? Well, I wouldn’t be the first guy to work 16 hours a day in order to make a career change.
Like I said, I’ve set July 1st as the date I begin writing scenes for Now I Knew You. I want to have the first draft complete in two months, which isn’t really difficult. Then two months for editing and two months for beta-reading and final editing.
In the meantime, to keep up with my 6 book goal, I’ll overlap with plotting a new book and editing Camp Dogs, which I finished last month. Why the insane pace? Because I’ve come to the conclusion that if I give myself too much time, I over think the writing. And, as we all know, the more you write, the better you get. So why not get the bad stuff out of the way quickly?
Hopefully, the bad stuff is already behind me. Camp Dogs is my 6th book. I’m feeling confident now, like a professional writer instead of a guy hoping to get a book published.
So this week, more editing of Camp Dogs and outlining of Now I Knew You. No problem juggling two books at the same time. Soon I’ll toss in a third.
Hey, when you love what you’re doing, it’s not really work (okay, yes it is, but I still love it).
Until next week… | |
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