July 9, 2015 in Dag

I can’t believe we’re at where we’re at

How on earth did that happen? Seems like I barely blinked and now suddenly we’re past the halfway mark for 2015 and rapidly moving onward to the finish.

Hard to believe that time can pass so quickly. Hard to believe that half a year has flown past. Time once again for a quick status update, to check how I’m going with my writing goals for the year.

1. My detective novel – A Fate Worse than Death. It’s done and in the can, thanks to the people at Booktrope. Well that’s a good start. I can tick one off already.

2. Two picture books – a bit of a hiccup here due to an illustrator dropping out. We’ve had to push the release dates back for both. Good news is we’re back on track and the first book, Maddie’s Monsters, should be out in September, leaving Bella and the Blue Genie ready around April next year, hopefully.

3. The YA/MG novel Through the Flame – it’s been sitting idle for a while as I worked on other things. Hoping to get it into editing in a month or so. Not sure if it will be ready by the end of the year. I don’t want to rush things. I’d rather spend the time to get it properly edited before release.

4. The dinosaur story – good news is I’ve managed to complete several drafts and now have a few beta readers looking at it. With my focus for the rest of the year probably shifting to the YA/MG novel, I’m not sure if I could also have this ready by the end of the year, but certainly early next year.

5. Two new picture book texts – I’ve already done one. Its title is The Iceberg and I’m quite pleased with it. So halfway there.

So all in all, I reasonably productive half year. The time might have flown, but looking back I’ve definitely been able to move things forward.

Hopefully the next half year can be just as productive.

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Jim Murdoch July 11, 2015 at 12:32 pm

I’m not sure how I’d feel working with an illustrator. The thing I like about writing is the degree of control I have. I have the same problem with theatrical works. I’ve written a couple of plays but made very little effort to get them performed and one of the reasons—way down the list from plain laziness—is the fear that they’d muck it up. I suppose writers whose work gets adapted for the big and small screens just have to take a deep breath and think about the cheque and that it’s an ADAPTATION, an interpretation of their work. I suppose if I could collaborate it might not be so bad but even then, although I can’t draw to save myself, I can still see me yanking the pen out of the artist’s hand and going, “No, like this!”

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Jonathan Gould July 12, 2015 at 1:10 am

Hi Jim. I know what you mean, though I find that as I get older and mellower it’s easier to share and delegate. I used to write comedy sketches and would cringe when I would see what the directors would do with them.

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