Thursday, September 03, 2009

Writing and Such

I realize I haven't posted here since I dropped the no-more-Garnet bomb, and I feel compelled to at least tell you all what I've been doing lately. As you may remember, the first of my new young adult series is due at the publisher October 15. That's like, well, TOMORROW. Okay, that's how it feels anyway. In order to get that done I have to write at least a couple thousand words a day. Which isn't so hard right now when what I'm doing is translating what I had written in third person into first, but it's probably going to get much harder after that. The only good news is that Mason is back at school starting the 8th, and I can focus all my day time and energy (as well as night) to getting that "in the can."

I'm also trying to come up with ideas for a new contemporary urban fantasy series. I've got about a half dozen little "shorts" (a paragraph pitch) that I'm considering for development into larger synopses. I've got one I'm really pretty excited about, but who knows if it's "fresh" enough to excite my agent or, perhaps more importantly, my editor and her bosses. Fingers crossed.

I also sort of wish I had a better sense of what my publisher would be interested in seeing from me. Should I shy away from vampires and go for urban fantasy or...? I have no idea. My plan is to send several proposals through my agent and make sure that at least half of them *do* include vamps, while also trying out some of my more "fresh" and way out ideas.

Honestly? I'm a little stressed about all of it. My weight has totally suffered from the stress too. I haven't been able to get to the gym thanks to Mason being home and I feel as plump as a ripe tomato.

Bleah.

6 comments:

Murphys Gal said...

Is it possible another publisher could pick you up? Trade paperbacks seem to be a rough place to start off anything paranormal right now with the amount of it coming out. I mean I see so much of it that I really can't afford to pick up a couple trades when I can get 2 mass markets for the same price of one trade. It's just so frustrating knowing how good this series is and that a decent author's established story is getting pushed aside for newer stuff. There's too much crap being shoved onto the shelves and good stuff like this getting canceled is a tragedy! I'm recommending you to all my book girlies that wait for me to find the good stuff before buying it. I wish you the best of luck!

Anonymous said...

What about Llewellyn?

tate hallaway said...

That's for the offer of recommending me to all your reading gal pals. I appreciate it.

It's an interesting point you make regarding trade paperbacks. I hadn't really considered that. Interestingly, my publisher plans to put out my young adult series in tp size, too. I hope that doesn't deter people from picking that up.

tate hallaway said...

As for considering other publishers for the series... I suspect I'd be a tough sell. My publisher dropped the Garnet series because "the numbers" (meaning sales) had been steadily decreasing over time. It might be possible for me to find a smaller press, like Llewellyn, who wouldn't consider those numbers to be low... but, well, given that Penguin still wants work for me, I'm going to think of this as an opportunity to try something new. Garnet had a pretty good run. I hate to say good-bye to her too, but perhaps someone even more awesome is waiting around the corner....

brista said...

Hey, I just wanted to say that I've read the Garnet books and I really enjoyed them. I've read a lot of "urban fantasy*" and I definitely enjoyed this series the most. Sooooo thanks for writing it!


(Assuming that's the name of the category and apologies if it isn't. I read a lot of books but I just can't get into naming genres! I usually just say stuff like, "Well...it kind of reminds me of This Book with a little bit of That Book if This Other Author had written it and it all took place on a boat 1405..." when describing genres. I am therefore a big fan of Amazon's "you might also like..." feature.)

Quietstar said...

I some how do not believe it's the number of sales that are decreasing with the trip I had to go through to get a hand on your book. It toke me quite a quest to get Romancing the Dead because every where I went they did not have it in stores. Let me give you a brief description as to what I mean by this, I live in New York City the book store by my job ran out of the book. I did not want to it order online because I just could not wait a few days to have it. I went to Syracuse (usually my weekend trip) and they did not have it at the book store there as well. I was in Dallas, Texas and it was the same thing that they did not have any more copy of that book. I gave up and eventually order the book online. I just can not believe that it is possible to be in three different places miles apart from each other and yet there is no Romancing the Dead to be found. I'm addicted to Garnet's series and upset that it will end. Thank you for writing and I wish you the best of luck!