Progress Update

Dear Reader of the Internet

I think I might have done one of these before, but I don't really tell y'all about my upcoming WIP (works in progress) and my plans. I think I briefly informed my writing bubble about Nanowrimo last summer and the faerie story I had worked on. There probably have been brief mentions of another project, perhaps the name "The Broken Bounty" will sound familiar to some.

My writing life has currently been absorbed by the world of the Broken Bounty. It has been my only WIP for the past few months and the only open document in my tool bar. I haven't dreamed about any other story or tried to plot anything else. Mostly this is because The Broken Bounty is nearly 4 years old and I want it to bring it into the world sooner than I brought Island Whispers (which took 6 years). We'll see if that's a possibility, but maybe you can infer from this update.

The Broken Bounty stands at 112,023 words. That includes the cover page and all of the chapter headings. We're still looking at over a hundred thousand words. I doubt that it will change much from that length. Most everything seems necessary or can be reasonably argued for its worth.

These words are split into 34 chapters and it is 380 pages in length. This is, of course, double-spaced. It has been rewritten more times than I can keep track of. But for the sake of some, I started doing "drafts" which sometimes seems silly to separate, and we're currently on Draft 3. Mind you, this is draft 3 of the draft that actually seemed likely for publication.

The original document for this book was a novella length story and contained only the skeleton of what it is now. This story has gone through multiple tweaks and it has actually had multiple readers. It has been beta read by Tori (a writer I met at State) and then the English Club (a group of writers I met at State) and even an unknown beta reader (who I do not know and will probably never know the identity of). I've sparsely discussed it among friends and hinted at it among those asking about my writing, but I've never really declared it. Now that time is coming.

I want to introduce The Broken Bounty to the world. To do that I plan on appealing to big publishers. I've already created a list: McElderberry Books, Scholastic Press, Magic Carpet Books Harcourt Inc., Viking, Firebird Fantasy, Random House, and Harper Collins. These are the names I pulled from the spines of some of my favorite books, and also books that are quite popular among others. Chances are slim, but I want to see if I can do this and I want to give The Broken Bounty its due.

For the time being, I'm polishing it up, tying over loose ends, changing things for clarity and checking the punctuation. Then I'll send out my query letters and wait. I'll keep y'all informed on the happenings and hopefully this journey will have a happy ending.

Thanks for being here!

Megan