What I Did

Revised The Girl, pages 7 - 51: from the bridge until just before she goes through the door.

Thoughts

I worked through the lion's share of the 'realist' section of the novel, before the point where continuity falls apart. The question I feel I have to ask myself: does it come together? Does it make sense? I feel it does, especially one the girl's in her aunt's apartment, but this feeling my be the inevitable consequence of the fact that I'm writing it: it is continuous because I write it out at once. Does this principle also apply to the reader? Will it seem as one because they read it as such?

What I Did

Kossler

• Wrote a few drafts of a synopsis
• Looked up and narrowed down a list of agents
• Submitted to two agents

The Girl

Started revisions: pp1-7

Thoughts

This year I'm trying to switch projects once a month, as a sort of motivational tool/technique to indulge my distractions. This week, January died and February didn't, so I moved from Kossler to The Girl (its semi-sequel, in the most incorrect way). It's odd, to shift so sudden, when the work is not yet done.

I had planned to submit Kossler to three agents—a nice and balanced number—and in that I failed, but only in the sense that I only sent it out to two, which only fails to meet my arbitrary number, nothing more. I'm already deep enough into the next project, I'm hardly thinking of it now. I'm merely happy to have sent a version of it off.

As for The Girl: what a thing. It's the most violent thing I've ever written, and it feels stark. I'm still only on the first major section—the aftermath of a somewhat less than realistic bomb—and all my personal notes to myself are on the subject of whether its 'alright': what is the 'use' of the heavy violence, in other words. And I don't have an easy answer for that yet other than that the part of me that commands aesthetics feels that's the way that it should be. I guess thinking of that is part of the revision.

What I Did

Drafted a complete agent inquiry letter for Kossler

Thoughts

This week, I moved slow. Because I'm writing this reflection a little late this week, I know that has changed, but I can't deny how much this felt like pulling teeth, for me. I had (and still have) to remember: this is a mostly meaningless thing. Asking for representation is not.... a work of aesthetic pleasure. It is prose written to be skimmed, the request not "slimy" but rather obvious to the form.

What I did

Wrote sample plot summaries for Kossler

Thoughts