It started on Tuesday when I went to Barnes and Noble looking for the names of some agents to query. I went straight to the sci-fi section and started looking in books for writers who thanked their agents. There is nothing that makes me feel worse than looking in the stacks at writers who have achieved what I dream of–real books, published with their names on the covers, by an honest to goodness publisher. I manned up and did it anyway, and it made me feel awful, like how the heck am I ever going to do that, but since Tuesday my productivity has been off the charts.

I’m out working in the garage today, putting up more 2×4 shelves and organizing our stuff. I spend a lot of time organizing. I can’t remember if I jotted down my short story idea in here for a man who keeps organizing and organizing in the garage, and finally drills so many holes in all the 2x4s that he knocks the house down. That’s kind of me.

I also finished revising chapter three of The Silent and Brave (or as Kim calls it, “The Silent but Deadly”– thanks Kim.) I think that my interest in organization is vital to The Peaceful, Brave, and Just. I have built my own world, and that requires massive organization. It’s also why I need to go back and revise. Ideas from the early part of the story begin to take form and shape as the story goes on, and by going back I can make them fuller and more seamless.

I love the way it feels when I finish a project and everything falls into place. In the garage, it will happen when all the stuff is off the floor and on its own shelf, easy to reclaim, easy to move. In the novels, it will happen when the whole story comes together and the reasons for all the actions and the characters become clear.

Chapter three reads very well. Kavela’s return to his home and parents allows for a good look into his personality, the philosophical differences that caused him to leave in the first place, his antagonistic relationship with his mother as opposed to the friendly one with his father, his old friends, and this new girl that he brings to meet everyone, even though she used to be outcast. It gave me the opportunity to tell how I felt during some of the situations in my own life, and that really served to make the characters relatable. I like how it turned out and how it moves the story forward.

This is a character driven series. I have a lot of them, and a lot of them have crazy names, two things that agents and publishers and readers complain about, but it’s my story, and I have decided that they are real and important to me, and so that’s just the way it’s going to be.

I also did two more query letters, both for The Peaceful and Just. I came right out and said what the hook is, the roads, and I think it is my best and clearest query letter to date. It’s strange, but I actually feel pretty confident that this letter is the one that will get me noticed, or at least that it’s a big jump in the right direction.