Long time, no journal! I really need to get back in the habit of writing here at least every other week, especially now that my life is finally settling back down a bit.

On Monday, I start teaching what should be the last live class I teach until Fall 2025, a statistics class for computer science, robotics, and engineering students. Of course, me being who I am, there will be card counting and poker theory woven into some of the lessons. Hey, if you’re not having fun doing math, then you’re doing it wrong!

And then about 8 days after that, give or take, the decision about my sabbatical is due. I strongly suspect I’ll be given the full-year sabbatical I asked for, but it’s not a lock until I see it in writing from the provost.

My writing and editing are going well. I finished the fifth draft of Blood Game and have a handful of queries out there for it. Might sent forth another dozen or so over the next month if I don’t receive interest soon. But mostly I’m focusing on Crying Call, a.k.a. Book 2 in the series, which the beta readers tell me is much stronger.

I am a “plotter” to the extreme. I do an immense amount of research before I ever start outlining, and then I spend several months fine-tuning a very detailed outline, making sure every bit of science is correct, every plot point makes sense, is in the right order, and makes the appropriate references to past story or foreshadowing of future story.

It’s all connected, all planned. The outline of my first book was 28K words, more like a Draft Zero. My outline of Book 2 was only 15K words. Maybe that’s a sign I’ve learned to trust myself a little more with the flow of a book. It’s definitely not a sign I’m turning into a “plotzer” or “pantser.” Nuh uh, bro. Never gonna happen. I don’t write Word One of my first draft until the outline is solid. Realism and authenticity are very important to me.

I have an approach to writing and editing that I suspect is different from a lot of writers. When I finish the first draft, I set the manuscript aside for two months while some beta readers check it out — nothing so unusual about that. But when I finally get back to it, that’s where my approach gets strange.

The first thing I do when it’s time to get back to work is to print the manuscript out, triple-spaced, and write down every bit of beta-reader feedback in the margins. I read through it all several times, and then make a very slow and methodical pass through the entire book to see how many suggestions make sense and are incorporable. This is pretty much the only structural editing I need, because of how precisely I structure everything the first time, in the outline.

In that same pass through, I also have a checklist of things I want every chapter to have, at least where possible. Good opening line, good closing line. Descriptions involving as many of the senses as possible. The raising of questions, and the answering of previous questions. Conflict. Emotion. Action. A whole pageful of boxes to check. Few chapters check every box, but every chapter has to check a lot of them or repairs are in order.

I’m nearly finished with that process for Crying Call — I expect to be one this week-end, or early next week. That’s the second draft.

I then immediately start working on the third draft, which is a different process. For that round of editing, I go through the text line-by-line addressing common writing issues. Reducing passive language. Avoiding excessive “I” statements (because I write first person). Tightening the prose, as in “don’t use twelve words when eight will do.” Changing out words to improve the rhythm and flow of the words as they’re read. And, of course, fixing typos and misspellings. That takes a week or two, and that’s the third draft.

I queried Blood Game with the third draft, and I’ll probably do the same with Crying Call. By no means do I believe the third draft is good enough to publish — I’m on the fifth for Blood Game, and I expect to do a few more edits before I self-publish, or if it gets picked up by a publisher, then probably much more editing than that.

Editing is where the good turns into the great. I think of it like painting. The outline is like the pencil marks on a canvas that guide you. The first draft is putting a picture down with broad brushes. And with each draft beyond the first, the brushes get smaller and finer, and the picture becomes clearer, more vivid, and more beautiful.

So I’ll be finished with a query-worthy draft of Crying Call by the end of January, hopefully. I’ll probably send it one week in advance to one particular agent who had kind words and good feedback on Blood Game before ultimately passing. Call it professional courtesy. And then I’ll start querying other agents as one normally does.

By the end of this year, I’ll have signed with a publisher, or I’ll have a solid self-publishing plan going forward. This is the year it happens, one way or the other. And that’s a good feeling.