Focused on the Novel

I'm nearing the end of year three of three in the MFA Programs In Writing at UC Irvine. Late last summer I finished my first full-length short story collection, Talking Past The Close. Right now it is just a document sitting in the Dropbox cloud. I've been lucky to place stories in some great places (Tin House, FiveChapters, and others). I've been working on my first novel since the end of summer (a dark comedy influenced by The Sisters Brothers and Fargo, among others, which will be my thesis project here at Irvine). I'm about 60,000 words into it and I think a complete first draft is in sight. Writing is rewriting. I know as soon as I write THE END on the novel that is when the real work will begin. I'm looking forward to that. Until then!

Twenty Ten

Goals. When you put them on paper and stick to the plan good things happen. I exceeded my writing goals in 2009 and I hope to do so again this year. I have three finished short stories that I'll be submitting to journals over the course of the year. But the big fish in 2010 is writing and finishing a novel.

I've never had a goal to write and finish a novel. Thus far in my writing life I've focused on short stories. Not this year. I'm dedicating January and February to research. Reading novels and stories similar to what I want to write and researching late 1800's London and the wild American west. Oh, and outlining the story so I have a road map. In March I plan to start writing the novel and hopefully by August I'll have a working rough draft. I'll spend the rest of the year revising and hopefully by January 2011 I'll have a manuscript to send to agents