In an effort to make this blog more personable, I've decided to discuss my WIPs a bit more in-depth. These WIPs range from poetry collections to novels and are in all stages of development. I'll begin with the poetry collections.
1- "Painted Silence": A chapbook collection of ekphrastic poetry inspired by some of my favorite works of art. It's in the mail for a competition to be judged by poet Mark Doty. (Sent it out yesterday.) The deadline for entries is August 15th and the winner will be announced in November. Prize is $1,000 and publication. This is my only "finished" collection of poetry, but still a WIP because it's only in submission stage.
2- "...Futile": A book-length collection of poetry about family, love, and loss. This project is in rough draft stage, with about two dozen more pages to be added to it. Mostly I need to add to the section on family as I've pretty much exhausted my store of stories regarding love and loss. WIP status earned because it will need lots more work before it hits submission/query stage.
3- "Musings": A chapbook collection of haiku and tanka form poetry. Still in rough draft stage with probably a dozen or so (at least) pages to go. This one's tougher than my other collections because each poem only takes a single page so I have to write more of them. WIP status earned because it needs more pages.
4- "Migrations": A poetry collection of yet-undetermined length. This work needs many more pages of poetry before I can decide whether it will be a chapbook or book-length collection. This collection will be location-based revolving around the four areas of the world that I've lived in. I'm unsure of whether to give this full WIP status since I've only got 2 or 3 poems written for it at the moment.
5- "Milepost": A chapbook collection of poetry about the big events in my life-- first kiss, first date, losing my dad, finding out I have a sister who was still-born, etc. With 8 pages so far, this is definitely in rough draft stage. Will need at least 16 more poems, assuming they all come in at 1 poem per page. WIP status earned.
Novels/series:
1- I have the tentatively titled "Sunstone Saga" series that I've been working on since high school. I scrapped the project a couple of years ago after meeting Jasper Fforde (or slightly before then perhaps). But a few months ago I struck on an idea to save the manuscript and have now been working on detailed world-building. It's WIP on backburner at the moment. I've written roughly 140+ pages so far and that's only about half the manuscript for the first book, which doesn't have a title. I've learned a lot about pacing and such since I began the book many years ago and so I am realizing that much of what I've written will have to be scrapped. Like, 100 pages of that. I have six chapters of set up that may or may not be crucial to the storyline and in which my main character does not feature. Major problems with pacing and design, I know. But I was trying to show too much of how the other six supplementary characters get to the point of exhaustion that leads to the collective dream they can't remember that is the impetus for what follows in the chapters after. I'm still going to have to figure out how to work in some of the details from those first six chapters, but I'm going to leave that be until after I finish the stupid book. When I start writing in August at my 2000 words-a-day pace I'm simply going to pick up where I left off when I abandoned the project and let it go from there. Then I'll rewrite and revise to my heart's content. WIP status: late end of development stage
2- A new world, a new novel. This series has no title yet. But it will someday. This is the project which I concocted when I abandoned Sunstone. I've not done much with it since then. A little world-building, a passage of writing that struck the inspiration chord when I was showering one day. (Isn't it so weird how that happens? You're doing something completely mundane and routine and you get that brilliant flash?) Anyways, back on track here. It's in a much earlier stage than Sunstone is but it will get written eventually. (Hopefully in September. See same post as above link.) WIP status: early end of development stage
It looks like you have a lot on your plate. Good luck with all your WIPs!
ReplyDeleteI've got a few novels in progress as well. I keep having to switch back and forth depending on the latest interest of an editor.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot in progress, as well. I really like your Milepost idea. I think it is unique enough to catch someone's eye just as a concept, and then you can suck them in with the poetry.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anna. Good luck to you all in your writing and querying!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing all your ideas. I'm impressed that you can have so many projects going at once. I have trouble jumping between stories. And I agree, the shower has been home to many of my ideas too. Sometimes it's the only quiet time I get in a day.
ReplyDeleteDon't be too impressed. They're all going to turn into complete bunk, but oh well.
ReplyDeleteWow. that is very interesting that you can do so many projects at once. When I do that, my characters begin to meld and become versions of each other. not good. not good!
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