WIP Before Wednesday - a new Tuesday feature

While most of my writing here on My Comfy Chair is focused on the wonderful, amazing and fabulous books written by other authors, I decided to spend one day a week focusing on my own adventures in writing.

While I wrote stories as a young boy, I didn't really pick up writing again until 2008, when I joined the writing community at Writing.com. I started writing poetry and flash fiction, with occasional longer stories, and for almost two years, I was satisfied with writing within and for that community.

In October 2009, I heard about a private group within Writing.com called Let's Publish!, and decided to take the plunge. It was and is a great group of critique and support partners, focused on getting stories and poems published. With the helpful, and sometimes scathing, advice of that group, I started submitting poems, and then stories.

I admit it. I went wild. I submitted like crazy, and eventually got the hang of finding more prestigious places and places that paid and so forth. One full year of maniacal submissions, rejections and acceptances.

317 submissions. 222 rejections. 56 acceptances (25 poems and 31 stories). A note from Orson Scott Card's assistant that he loved my writing. A slew of contributor copies on my bookshelf.

In October, 2010, I stopped submitting cold turkey. I had already written a couple of novellas which were badly in need of rewrites (and still are), but I decided to focus on a middle grade troll novel that was nagging at me.

I started writing about Bernie, a forgetful and easily distracted 11 year-old troll, his friend Tish, and her Granny Mac. Once I started writing, I kept going and going, writing about their adventures with giants and dragons. When I finished one book, I hadn't written enough, so I wrote a second book about their adventures.

I am currently in revisions on that first book, which is shorthand for staring at 25,000 words and trying to figure out how to fully realize these characters I have in my head. I can visualize Bernie, but will the middle grade reader relate?

And so, to draw this rather long post to a close, that is where you find me in my adventure. With any luck, each Tuesday I will post a status update. Most will be much shorter than this, I imagine. Thank you for accompanying me on my journey.