The dog days of summer are upon us.

As I mentioned in my last harbinger, I side with the Hellenistic astrologists and their mistrust of high temperatures; however, I do try to make the best of it. Which is why we are headed to Glacier today, to join the bears in their Bacchanalian revelries. I imagine it will look something like this:

What I’m Working On:

In July I taught two workshops for teens on coming up with novel ideas and pitching them to investors/readers/your parents. It was a lot of fun and something I hope to do again. Brainstorming novel ideas is one of my favorite things to do, especially in a low-stakes, high-energy environment like a roomful of dehydrated and sleep-deprived teenagers. They were all good sports, and we laughed a lot.

As of last night, I passed 45,000 words on my middle-grade supernatural story. I also sashayed right into act three, and things are really ramping up in the tension/action department. This story has been a lot of fun to work on, although next year, would someone please remind me not to attempt a first draft over summer break? I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write 500 words a day while bears are plying me with candied grapes and French horns.

As usually happens when I get this far into a draft, I start thinking about what I’ll work on next. I’ve thrown around ideas for sequels to TWK and TSC in the past, and one of them simply won’t leave me alone. I make no promises (and I’m vague for a reason), but at the moment, that’s what I’m considering tackling next.

What I’m Reading:

Once again, I didn’t make it through many books in July, although partially that’s because I picked the massive tome The Covenant of Water to read. This falls squarely in the adult book category, but it was a fascinating and enthralling read despite its length.

I also read and loved A Year in Provence and would very much like to be invited to someone’s French countryside home to stay for a few weeks, so if that person happens to be you, please do reach out.

In audiobooks, I listened to Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (a fun and quick adult fairy story), and then popped over to sci-fi to sample Ernest Cline’s Armada.

Writing Tip:

Perhaps the constellation-induced ennui is affecting me, but my July tip is to hold your writing plans loosely. This tip may also be sponsored by the fact that I’m on month three of waiting to hear back from New York editors. In an election year. When the middle grade market is not exactly hopping.

In fact, the last time I was on submission with New York editors was in 2016 with The Winter King. ALSO an election year, and also a notoriously difficult time to sell the type of book I had written.

It can be very easy to cast sidelong glances at other authors who are announcing their book deals or (seem to be) effortlessly traversing the choppy publishing waters, but I can assure you that if you were to ask any of them, they would also have tales of heartache and disappointment.

Everyone, at every stage of writing, has to deal with rejection. We all have to be willing to shrug off yet another “this isn’t the right fit for me,” and work on the next thing. You can write another novel. You can go out on submission later than you wanted. You can pursue a different publishing path. But you can’t do any of those things if you give up, which is a common temptation in this industry. Don’t give up, but also, hold your plans loosely enough that, when an opportunity you never anticipated comes up, you’re able to accept it.

That’s all for now! See you in August.

Christine