Russell's Writing Blog

About Me


I'm 46, Married with two sons. This blog will document my attempt to get my children's novel published.
Enjoy the blog. To comment on any of the posts, just click on the title of the post you want to comment on.  Play nicely!

Showing Tag: "sequel" (Show all posts)

It's been a while....

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, October 12, 2013, In : Agent update 
Ok - so I haven't posted recently but that doesn't mean that nothing's been happening. I heard back from the agent that I'd sent my improved manuscript to and he agreed - it was much much better, BUT (and there's always a 'but', isn't there?) it still needed a "final polish."   He said that he might have taken me on a year ago when he was still in the early stages of building his list, but now he likes writers to be 100% before he signs them up because he represents the writer, not the book a...
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Now where was I?

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Friday, August 23, 2013, In : Writing update 

While waiting for the results of my latest efforts to try to get signed with an agent, I decided not to waste time lingering and re-started work on the sequel.  One thing I found straight away was that I had kind of "lost my thread" and needed to get back into the story in order to continue it, so I decided to perform a line by line edit on the 20,000 words I'd already written in order to refresh my memory and make sure I didnt forget any important minor details.

Reaching the end of the proces...
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After the editing, the waiting....

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Thursday, July 25, 2013, In : Agent update 
Two weeks ago, I reached the point where I couldn't edit the book any more without chopping out what I believed to be important sections of the story.  It's only 2000 words longer than the first Harry Potter book at the moment, so hopefully it's in the ballpark. I re-sent it to the literary agent who'd first suggested I reduce the word count and now I have to wait.  It's likely that this wait will be measured in months rather than weeks and though I'm desperate for feedback, I'll resist the u...
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Progress on all fronts

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, April 20, 2013, In : Agent update 
Things are looking very positive at the moment.  One of the agents that I met at the event in London (and gave my first three chapters to) emailed me on Friday telling me she'd enjoyed the first three chapters and would like to see the full manuscript (which I duly emailed to her minutes later).

In terms of writing, I've kept to my 5000 words per week target, 15,000 (eight chapters) so far, perhaps a fifth of a way through the first draft.  I've managed to prise myself off Twitter and Facebook...
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So far, so good.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, April 6, 2013, In : Writing update 
So far I've kept up with my self imposed challenge of 5000 words for the first week and it's looking good for week two with 4000 words written and 3 days to go.  If I can keep this up, then it's entirely feasible that I could have a working first draft of the Iron Golem within 3 months.

No news on the agent front.  I was hoping to have heard back from one of them just before Easter but nothing so far.  I know they all went to Bologna children's book fair the week before and it's entirely possi...
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Mission accomplished

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Monday, April 1, 2013, In : Writing update 
Well here we are a day ahead of the deadline and I've done just over 5600 words (20 pages) of the Iron Golem.  No doubt whatever I write will all have changed beyond recognition by the second draft, but it's important to get the words down (I just can't write out of sequence).  Already we've seen one cool new magical item and met a new and slightly dodgy character.

Lets' see if I can manage another 5000 by a week on tuesday. 

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Start as you mean to go on.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, March 30, 2013, In : Writing update 
A good start to the Iron Golem.  I promised myself 5000 words by next tuesday and I'm at almost 3000 so far.  Added to the little bits I'd done already that puts me into chapter three (plus the prologue).  Some of it has been hard going (lots of potentially interesting distractions) but I forced myself to keep going and I'm quite pleased with the results. 

Already totally off the reservation as far as the story plan goes, but that's not unusual.  The bits I've changed so far are the parts I t...
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Letting the train take the strain

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, February 16, 2013, In : Writing update 
Spending the week touring Northern cities for the day job, I feared I'd get no work done but on the train I actually got the time to finish the first draft of the second Pandora Wolfe book plot - approx 60 chapters plotted out.  Got a long weekend this week, so I intend to try and pull it into some semblance of order, change the timings of some events and ensure the pacing is right. Once that's finished, I'll start the writing proper. By the way, the working title of the sequel is Pandora Wol...
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Paranoia and Progress

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, In : Writing update 
A month after sending my manuscript I succumbed to my inner OCD which kept saying "I bet they never got your email and you're waiting in vain" and emailed the agent to check it had arrived (while being clear that I wasn't checking on progress or being pushy).  They got back straight away and said it had been recieved and was in a queue, so I can relax.

On the plus side I haven't been idle and have continued plotting out book 2 - up to chapter 34 so far. I've invented three new magical items fo...
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The power of shame.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Tuesday, January 8, 2013, In : Writing update 
Another productive evening.  Despite coming home feeling like an arthritic octogenarian from my first couple of gym visits of the year, I sat down and immediately cracked on with the planning.  A couple of hours later and I had another 3 chapters plotted out which is enough for one evening. 

I'd originally thought the blogging, the facebooking etc would prove a massive distraction from actual writing (and so it did while the novelty of constantly hitting the refresh button to see the extra li...
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Another update

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, January 5, 2013, In : Writing update 
The new year is well and truly here and I've decided I'd better crack on with the work on the second Pandora Wolfe book.  I've read that publishers and agents like you to be well on with a sequel because almost all book deals are for at least two books.  If someone reads and likes your book, they want to be able to pick up a sequel fairly soon before they lose interest.  Besides that, I've got a story to tell and I need to get it down on paper or it'll drive me bonkers.

I've plotted out an ove...
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