As Something New Ends, Something New Begins
8-14-25
I started writing my latest novel on 1-12-25, and today I am proud to say that the first draft is complete. This one fell around 160k words, and by far has been my fastest turn around for writing a manuscript. Again, I won’t be sharing too many specific details about my newest novels moving forward, but I would love to discuss how and why this latest story was the one I chose to tell, and how it evolved as I was writing it.
This story, which I’ll call Agony Rift, was one that I set out to write as concisely as possible. I need a novel that lands directly in the zone that debut authors are allowed to pitch to agents and publishers, which means it needs to be around 90-100k words. And I am horrible at cutting off my novels at those lengths. No matter how much I try to focus in and trim out fat, I always seem to end up around the 120-150k mark. So, this latest book is going to join all the others before it on my virtual shelf, as I look to the future, and will continue trying to write an easy breezy novel ripe and ready for the powers that be to snap up.
Agony Rift is hands down my most character-driven story to date, as I’ve learned so much more about storytelling since last year, and have been working that character muscle in my writing. There are two POVs, a stark contrast to my older novels that have many, many more than that. My novel before Agony Rift contained three POVs, and experimenting with less POVs has been a fun endeavor to give a try. That being said, my next story will most likely contain three main POVs and two secondary, as I’ve found that five to six POV area the most entertaining and manageable for me to pen. I love a large cast of characters as much as anyone, but finding that right balance of who gets a POV or not is something I’m still working on.
As is customary in these little updates, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read through these words. As I’m sure all novelists know, the transition period between projects is something that is nearly as important as the manuscripts themselves. What do you do as soon as a draft is complete? Do you balance multiple projects at the same time? Do you both edit old projects and write new ones together? Personally, I’m going to try creating a muscle and room in my life for the editing of my last project and the writing of a brand new one at the same time. This will help expedite my projects, and will get my drafts polished up quicker. However, already I find myself with little time to spare in my life, so this will prove to be a tremendous challenge.
You are the blood in the veins of this website, and your pores breathe warm breath into an otherwise arid tundra, thawing paragraphs and notations otherwise left buried in obscurity.
Everlasting Is My Vitality For Us,
JMB
