This was a month of getting stuff done thanks to a pair of little writing retreats. I did one long weekend at the Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House for a formal writers’ retreat, although I ended up skipping the structured parts because most of it didn’t really feel relevant to me.
Then a couple weeks later, I took nearly a week off to camp out at a La Quinta Inn, lock myself in a room and write. By the end of the time,
I was exhausted, although I think I may have gotten sick with something along the way. Still, it seems like perhaps 3–4 days might be my maximum productive time for a residency like this.
One consequence of this flurry of activity is that I got two previously workshopped stories into submissions and a third is in progress. I finished doing some revisions on the novel and restarted querying, although still getting nothing but form rejections. As much as I love this book, I think it might end up getting trunked. At least I’ve managed to get a few excerpts published as stories.
The big thing though, is that on the first retreat,
I ended up starting a new novel. Maybe on the third try I’ll know how to do this thing.
Had a fiction acceptance come in this month and I should have publication news to share over the next couple months.
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