Hi friends!
Long time no see. I thought I'd have time to sit down and write a blog post at some point in February...or March...and now it's mid-April and I finally had a free second. My senior year has NOT PLAYED AROUND, and I've been busy in every other aspect of my life. So here are some quick updates!
- I am exactly three weeks away from graduating from college with a BA in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. I will be attending Seton Hill University to pursue a graduate degree (MFA) in Popular Fiction: Writing, Editing, and Publishing. I'll be writing a novel over the course of my 2.5-year program while also learning about other parts of the business so I can prepare to work as an editor, agent, or publishing assistant in the future.
-I signed the lease on an apartment in Pittsburgh PA and will be moving there on my 23rd birthday (mid-May). My graduate program is largely online, so I will do school virtually as well as work part-time. Pittsburgh is very different from anywhere I've ever lived, but I visited over my Spring Break and am so excited to return there!
-After editing The Song Of The Sword multiple times and sending it through several beta readers (thank you to Maria, Jaeda, and Ani!) I started querying agents right before my Spring Break back in March. That means I sent the first few chapters of my book out to agents along with a synopsis, a query letter, and whatever else that agent wanted (because there's no industry standard for what to ask for). I sent it to about thirty people, and have only gotten rejections so far, but I'm not too worried. Rejections are all a part of the game and I'm willing to keep playing it for as long as it takes.
-Now that I've told a bunch of agents what the approximate word count of my book is, I need to stop touching it, which means I get to start writing the sequel!!! It's got the same cast of characters (with some new ones!) but is told by completely different people- the women in my story. Yes, this sequel is narrated by Avalon, Astrid, and Azalea, and dare I say, I love book two almost more than book one?? It's definitely weird for Colin to be a side character in this story, except when Astrid's speaking (they're the cutest couple and I adore them) but this second book is emotional and raw and I'm obsessed with it. I'm about twenty chapters in but have mapped out most of the rest of the book, so I'm hoping it will be much easier to write than the first one.
-I've been generating some buzz over on TikTok by creating videos introducing my characters with concept images set to music. The number of comments I've gotten asking when my book will be available for pre-order, saying they googled my title to see if it was already published so they could buy it, or just saying that my book sounds amazing and they can't wait for it to come out feeds my soul.
-I've been rereading the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas since February. I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through Empire of Storms and loving it! I read these books for the first time last summer, and diving back into the world has been fun.
And that's about it for my updates! I don't know when the next time I'll write on here is, but I love you all!
Xoxox- Emmabird
