With some excellent advice, I've decided that I need some accountability with my editing because my life is very chaotic right now. And there's a saying that has been motivating me: "If you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice." I don't know who said it, but I know I don't want to sacrifice this story becoming the best it can be. Doing the 30 in 30 challenge was really helpful and I think it was because I had a community of writers watching me. I know nobody is pressuring me on here, but the imaginary pressure I feel when I post is genuinely motivating. I've split up my editing process into four phases that will hopefully have me finishing up this draft ready for beta readers in April. I won't go into too many details today, but my goal for October is to complete Phase 1, which is basically going through the book, doing some research and mapping, and generally getting it ready for actually going in and editing things. In the research part of this, I've just finished a book called "Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling" by Henry Lien. It dives into Kishotenketsu storytelling (if anyone here is familiar with that) and has opened the boundaries a little bit for how I can tell my story. I had an idea at the beginning but changed quite a few major things because I felt like I couldn't tell a good story with them. But this book proved me wrong. It's getting me pretty excited about my novel because I can bring back the things I really wanted to do with my novel in the first place. (And actually make it work). So if you want to chat Kishotenketsu, editing, or motivation...let me know! Until then, I'll update you guys again when I complete Phase 1 by the end of the month!

GUYYYS. Haha better late than never, but last night at 1:30 am I finally finished my story-level revision that I was working on during our 30K in 30 Days challenge! The middle is still messy. I think the pacing is still off. But I'm in love with the ending, and now all the plot threads tie together in a way that makes sense. My goal is to print it out and listen to it on Speechify next (following @Allison Anderson's advice), then clean up whatever new issues I find, and hopefully get it to beta readers by the end of the month! I know there's still a lot of work to do, but I'm not going to lie--I'm still riding the high that comes with typing "THE END" for the second time. Maybe editing won't kill me after all! 😂

Hello from the other side of the planet!! 🌏 I moved to South Korea about a month ago and I have been struggling to find time to write. Part of it is the moving/new job and the other half is the excitement of everything. I'm hoping things will start to calm down so I don't have to go out every night and get basic essentials I've forgotten I don't have yet, but I will take any and all advice for finding a good writing time. I'm sure I just need to say "This is my writing time! I can't do anything else!" But maybe I need someone or something to help me be accountable? I do know the 30k in 30 days challenge really helped motivate me to get writing done. Any tips?

Thursday October 1 at 7 p.m. MDT, StoryClub will be hosting an author Q&A with Ayana Gray, New York Times-bestselling author of speculative fiction! Her works have been translated in more than a dozen languages across five continents and have received critical acclaim at the state and national level. Her books include I, MEDUSA; BEASTS OF PREY; and most recently HAWK AND SPARROW. Learn more about her writing on her website here. What questions do you have for Ayana? Comment them here and tune in next week for answers! And if you're planning on attending, like this post! Everyone who attends is entered into a giveaway contest for one of Ayana Gray's books 👀🎁📖

hello dear StoryClub Please send your girl some love...I've reentered the query trenches... sent 3 out yesterday...and have like 20 to go. One was to an agent who I live pitched to at the SCBWI summer conference who seemed excited about it... and of course, after I hit 'send' I started running the acronym in my head and realized how many times I've been calling it SCWBI (doesn't that sound better even though it doesn't make sense?) and also that I didn't put headers with page numbers on my writing sample. (side note: If anyone is looking for even more support, SCBWI virtual conference was actually really well run and super fun and easy to meet people). Anyway, I'm excited the actual writing is all me and the story is what I envisioned it to me years ago when I started it... and the query letter is so much better ... as for the synopsis? Well, that's still a beast of burden... Lastly, when i sent out a few queries earlier this year, for the first time, I broke out into hives. that hasn't happened...yet. 🍻to progress! What I learned for this time was to have something ready to go and work on so your not sitting there frozen in fear of rejection ... I mean of course we all want books that go big, but along the way, I've noticed that so long as I'm creative, I am well. and, if you're working on the next thing, it also has the added bonus of having something else to query. The other thing that's different is that I have since built up a writing/creative community that I'm not afraid to lean on. So, thank you all for this space, too! (and to @Angela Griffin for starting that neverending story at the perfect time!)