Joshua P. Simon - The Accidental Author

It’s been a few months since my last writing update so I’d thought I’d take a minute to chime in and talk about what I’ve been up to.

1. Steel and Sorrow: Book Two of the Blood and Tears Trilogy – This went to Betareaders a couple of weeks ago. I’ve already gotten some good feedback and positive reactions which is great. I’m not expecting to get all the comments in until late June so I’ll be working on other projects in the meantime. Then I’ll make my final pass and send the MS to my editor by July 15th.
2. Hero of Slaves: A Blood and Tears Novella – I managed to outline and write the rough draft of this since turning in Steel and Sorrow to Betareaders. This was one of the harder things I’ve written. At one point, I had to stop and rewrite a large part of the beginning and completely change my originally planned ending. But the first draft is done at around 13K words. I’m taking a couple days off before I begin revising it so I can approach it with a fresher perspective. My goal is to get it to a decent state as soon as possible so I can get it to Leah (my alphareader) for her initial reaction.
3. Various Short Stories – While taking those days off from Hero of Slaves, I’m polishing a few unrelated short stories. Two will be submitted to different contests. The third (Horror Flash Fiction), I’m going to hold onto for a bit and then later submit to online ezines.

Those are my three most immediate goals right now. Besides getting Steel and Sorrow to my editor, I’ll spend the next two months or so outlining (and probably starting) Book Three of the Blood and Tears Trilogy (untitled), get Hero of Slaves ready to go to Betas as soon as I can, and hopefully write another short story.

What have you been up to?