The Good and the Ugly

First the good:

Rogue Publishing is sending me a contract for the Pariah Adventure I proposed. Yeah! I'll get right to work on that Sunday.

Now for the Ugly:

Some creep has hacked into one of my person e-mail accounts and sent a bunch of SPAM! I keep getting batches of bounced e-mail messages and there is no telling how many of these messages were sent and delivered. I have contacted my e-mail provider and the web provider for the website that the e-mails link to and complained. Hopefully someone will do something. I wish there was some government agency I could complain to.

Thank you, sweet God and Goddess!

It only took jiggling the connections twenty times and restarting the computer fifty times, but the Mac finally made the blessed connection to the net! The revisied Pariah proposal in on its electronic journey to Rogue Publishing. Safe travel little e-mail and watch out for viruses and down servers!

I think I will reward myself with Lord of the Rings. It's been a hard night and I could use a treat.

PLEASE, dear Lord and Lady!

Let my Mac connect to the internet so I can e-mail the Pariah proposal. It is already to go. I've checked and double checked. Now please the the Mac connect to the internet so I can upload it!!!

Pariah Proposal

I finished the required changes to the Pariah proposal. I still need to enter these changes in the computer, double check them and e-mail them.

However I may have trouble with the last part. I'm jinxed when it comes to e-mailing things to Rogue Publishing. Every time my computer does something wierd and won't let me send it. I always have to take my files to Kinko's and send it from there. The problem is never the same one twice and it dissapears as mysteriously as it appears as soon as the files are sent. This never happens with any other submission I make.

Brainstorming

I brainstormed the plot points for the last part of PSI Emergency. The theme has become clear for me now and I'll be able to use it to complete the story arc, and I may need to add a bit to the earlier chapters to set up the theme.

I've also reviewed to revision notes from Rogue Publishing. Revisions always make me sad. I feel like I failed, or am a failure which is worse. I just have to pull myself up by my bootstrings and get to work on it. The sooner it is done, the sooner I'll know if Rogue will publish this book or not. Besides, making my editor wait won't exactly put her in a good mood.

I have too many irons in the fire now, but does that stop me from fiddling with new project ideas? Nope. Last night I roughed out a page and a half barebones outline for the fantasy trilogy that has been begging me to write it.

Proposal revisions required

I heard back from Rogue about the Pariah adventure proposal that I sent earlier this week. She wants some changes and a few paragraphs about what the sections cover. I think I can address all her concerns.

Finally!

Chapters 42 and 43 are complete for PSI Emergency, and with that the big action sequence has come to an end at long last. The word count stands at 47,080. I have two long chapters in my outline that were supposed to be resolution chapters according to the original outline. Now I have to take these and pick out what is needed now and what should wait for the real resolution some 22,000 to 32,000 words away.

Next I need to take the handful of ideas for the expanded plot line and arrange them, and probably add several more, and then bring the whole mess into a cohesive story. Once that is complete I will be able to finish this novel. Whooppee!!!

Back to PSI Emergency

I wrote Chapter 40 and 41 of PSI Emergency. I intend to continue on to Chapter 42 in a few minutes. I might as well get as much done on this nearly finished novel while I wait to hear back on A Tangeld Web. I'd like to finish up the current outline, which will only get me to the 3/4th mark on the wordcount. Then I can work on the new expanded outline for the last 1/4th.

From this outline I have learned that while dramatic sections that are low on action usually run 1000 words for me, action sequences only take about 450-500 words. This will be something important to keep in mind in the future outlines I make.

My current word count is 45,582. My target word count is 70,000, but I may need to expand this to 80,000 to fit the desired length of most science fiction publishers.

E-mails sent

The Pariah proposal for "A Tangled Web" and the resent article for JTAS have both been e-mailed. That is a load off my mind to have them 'out the door' so to speak.

Updates

I got a surprise e-mail from the editor or JTAS saying the article about infestations was cut short and could I resend it? I'm surprised they are interested after the other similiar article featured this issue. I'll send it tomarrow.

I finished the Pariah proposal and will e-mail it tomarrow as well.

I started reading through Complimenatry Murder and decided it needs another revision. There is not enough 'umpf'.