Where Did The Summer Go? Keeping Up With Writing While Not Getting Any Writing Done

Whoa – it’s really been a while since my last blog post, hasn’t it? According to my calculations it’s been about a month – and I usually really like writing these things, both to update my readers but also for my own sanity – so sorry about that.

When I realized it was suddenly the 10th of August the other day and that autumn is quickly approach (the pouring rain has already started) I began wondering what the hell happened to the summer. Sure, I had some time off (two weeks of hiking in the mountains, biking through the forest, and sunbathing by the beach), but I swore the summer used to last at least a few months back in the day?

Did I get writing done at all this summer, or did it all just pass me by?

Not really understanding what happened to the summer months – because I sure as hell felt like I hadn’t done any writing – I decided to go back through my calendar (yeah, I keep a little writing-calendar-log-thingy) to see what had actually happened.

And sure enough, I had done some stuff:

Going back to before the summer even started, at the end of March I submitted a horror novella I’ve been working on for a few years to an indie publisher. I had actually just decided not to send it off to another place – a place I had thought would be good for me, but turned out not to be a good fit – and I wasn’t really sure if I should just self-publish it or what, when I found this other indie publisher. They seemed perfect so I threw myself around, wrote a new synopsis, a new query letter, the whole shebang and submitted it.

Then, at the end of April I was invited to write for a SUPER SECRET PROJECT that I’ve been sworn to secrecy about. (Not really, it’s this podcast called My Father’s Files that Inked In Gray is producing and I’m one of twelve authors who’s contributing.) You can read more about it here. My the middle of June I’d torn my hair out over five different drafts that would eventually make up my first draft for this story, and submitted it. And let me tell you – I’m excited as hell!

By the end of July my short story “They Came From Nowhere” was published in the anthology Contact by Black Hare Press. Black Hare Press produces a lot of different collection and various anthologies, and Contact is in a series of 500-word-fiction, where each anthology is full of stories that are exactly 500 words and centered around the same theme. Contact is – as you might have guessed – a science fiction anthology centered around first contact. You can check that out here!

At the beginning of August I handed in my second revised draft for My Father’s Files. Again – I’m so stoked to be a part of this and I can’t wait to share more about it with all of you. If the production goes along as planned, I hope it won’t be long either.

And then, a few days ago I resubmitted that horror novella I talked about earlier. After submitting it in March I got a rejection a month or so later – but! – I got feedback and was urged to resubmit. Of course I threw myself around, discussed it with my beta readers who know the story almost as well as myself, implemented the changes – because the feedback was great! – and suddenly found myself hitting the send button on my email. Now I’m crossing my fingers and toes, and hoping that it’s as good as I think it is.

And in between all of this I’ve kept on submitting other short stories and flash fiction to various websites and collections – let’s hope they’re accepted!

So there you have it – clearly there’s been some things going on with me this summer. Yet, I still feel like I’ve done nothing? Maybe it’s because I’m used to working on bigger, over-arching projects while I do these shorter stories. Of course I’m still working on the third book in my thriller series (The Columbus Archives) which has been written, revised and edited, but I’ve been waiting for feedback from beta readers this summer so it’s on the back-burner for a little while.

All in all, I’m very excited about the various smaller projects I’m doing, now that I’ve gotten an overview and realize what I’ve actually put my time into. At the same time, I can’t wait to draft another novel… Oh well, I think I’ve just convinced myself to start a new one, now.

What have you been up to this summer? Working on something new and exciting? Going over the 4215th draft of an epic novel? Let me know in the comments!