Post-Cruise Blues
Updates on GAME OVER and it's interconnected standalones
Wow, what a wild month it’s been. My cruise last month was wonderful! It was my first ever cruise and I had so much fun. I will say, I’m glad I went on my first cruise with cruise people, because otherwise I would have been very lost. It was a great week of spa pampering, water and sun, foreign countries, and most-blessedly, no screen time (or, minimal screen time, since I did do a little bit of writing). Thank you for your patience with me as I get back into the swing of routine after vacation. It’s been tough, and I feel like I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off more days than not.
But! I’m back to it now and have some exciting writing updates to share.
GAME OVER is in tertiary edits.
I have completed the third draft of GAME OVER. The second draft is out with a group of beta readers, and feedback has been coming in in waves. It’s been extremely helpful to hear people’s thoughts on my story and my characters, and I love getting to hone the draft further. We are getting really close to the manuscript being ready to query.
Of course, as soon as I sent the second draft out to betas, I immediately had changes that needed to be made. When I finished the second draft, there were things about the final quarter of the draft that just weren’t sitting quite right with me. After processing my feelings about the ending with my aunt and two best friends, I came up with a couple solutions that have tidied up the ending. Even though I still haven’t received feedback from all my betas, I decided to go ahead with completing the third draft, because these were changes that needed to made regardless of what feedback I got.
Going from the first draft to the second was quite a lot of work because it required extensive rewriting. The transition from second to third has been much easier, as all I needed to do was add a few new plot points.
I am currently working on my read-throughs and editorial checklist for the third draft, with two primary goals in mind: cut word count (I would ideally like to cut another 1000 words from the manuscript, but I’d be satisfied with 500), and polish the new plot points.
I need to send the manuscript back to my editor by May 22, and then we’ll go from there!
Tentatively, I’m hoping to be ready to query by mid-late summer.
BORED GAME is coming along.
BORED GAME is the name of my second novel. All told, I currently haveplans to make this a series of seven interconnected standalones. BORED GAME features a former teammate of GAME OVER’s FMC, and is a forced proximity taking place during COVID.
This one has required much more specific research than GAME OVER. I spent much of my Thanksgiving break researching headlines and timelines of the early days of the pandemic.
Originally, I was planning to write BORED GAME as single POV from the MMC’s perspective. As I’ve continued to learn more about writing craft, and have developed my FMC, I recently decided to switch this manuscript to dual POV. That gave me a little wind in the sails to write some new scenes for this book, when I have been a little stalled out on it over the last couple months.
I’m thinking seriously about taking a joint 30th birthday/research trip for this book later in the year, but we’ll see how things shape up with the changes I’m currently going through career-wise.
GAME FACE is beginning to take shape.
GAME FACE is currently slated to be the fourth book in this series. (By the way, these are all working titles and may change later). This manuscript partially takes place on a cruise, thus the research trip earlier this month.
GAME FACE features a secondary character from GAME OVER, and may or may not (but definitely is) an achillean love story. Which excites and intimidates me in equal parts.
GAME FACE requires more hands-on research in the esports arena, so I’ve continued to write on location and learn more about the wider world of esports outside of just the collegiate scene.
You may be wondering what’s going on with the third book…
The third book is also in the works in the background. I haven’t really touched it in a while, but I do have just under 10K words of this manuscript written. This one features the best friend of my FMC from GAME OVER and takes place in Scotland!! Some of you may remember my trip about a year ago. I might need to go back for more research…oh no…a travesty. This one has a totally random working title, as I cannot for the life of me come up with a title with the words ‘game’ or ‘play’ in it. We’ll get there…
That’s most of the updates for now! Again, sorry for the delayed update, I know it’s been a while since my last post. Playing catch up after the cruise has not been fun and I’ve really felt off my equilibrium. I’m settling back into things now and am excited for everything that’s coming up with GAME OVER.
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