The Quest #1

The quest is a simple one. That does not mean that it is an easy one, just that the objectives are not complex. I want to be an author. I want to see my books in bookstores. I want to tell stories to people.

Fortunately, I have wanted this for some time, and have made the following progress. I write every day. One full page, 12 pt. font, single spaced. This habit has been the savior of the dream.

When I started writing, right out of school, I would go through periods of intense writing. I don’t remember how quickly I wrote the first chapter of The Ring of Dain Thar Duin, but I think it took me less than a month.

Then I rested on my laurels. I wrote the first chapter of a book. Hooray! The days then began to slip by and work was not continued. I think a month or two later I wrote the next chapter. Then repeat. I took me about seven months to write roughly 30,000 words. For some, this is what they want, but for me, it was too slow, too undisciplined.  

January 1^st, 2019, was the first day promised myself to write every day. I have kept that promise to myself since then. My writing has improved; my stories have improved.

My production since then had been: The Ring of Dain Thar Duin 225,000 words, The Quintilogy ~150,000 words, Howl 120,000 words, The Rider (working title) 203,000 words, The Peacock 53,000 words, The Worth of a Stone (working title) 134,636 words, plus a wide array for shorter works.

I have written a million words of fiction, and I am ready for it to start working for me. I have begun to seek an agent for The Worth of a Stone, a cozy fantasy novel which was born from a period of anxiety and how I got out of it.

In my notes, I have queried twenty agents, but I think it is more like twenty-five, because I didn’t have a system to start. It has been three months since I started. Having worked with people trying to get their books published, I understand a terrible truth:

Breaking in is harder than writing a book.

Much harder.

Even as I write this I got a rejection from an agent. So in the Quest blog I will be writing about my quest to get published. I expect it will take me quite a long time. But I have high spirits.

Join me on this wild ride,

Michael