It’s been a while since I posted, I know. For some reason, writing a journal entry seems like too much work lately. Plus I’ve been busy, as we all have, of course. Doing the holiday thing with family, eating lots o’ turkey and related goodies, chasing the youngsters, decorating for Christmas. And getting up early in the morning to work on my fantasy novel again.

I had to put my Maps and Legends novel on the back burner once again, because I got some great feedback from Colleen, my agent, on my novel about magic that takes place in Dubuque, Iowa, of all places. I want to call it my YA novel, but I’m not sure if the book is gonna be young adult or not. I’m still working on that.

Right now it looks and feels like a YA novel, because I’ve cut out all the other main point-of-view characters except for three protagonists, all aged 15-16. But I need to do all the rewrites first, and worry about how to market it later. Actually, I think I’ll let Colleen worry about that! Whew. That’s a relief. 😉

Have to remind myself that I have an agent whose job is to sell the stuff I write, and my job is to write. That’s kinda cool, huh?

I’m having a lot of fun with the rewrite, and I’m really grateful to Colleen for steering me in the right direction with the book. I added another viewpoint character and got rid of two other viewpoint characters, and my new guy, Jeroan, is a lot of fun to write. He has all sorts of inner turmoil, but he tries to give off the impression that he’s in control and all cool and stuff. Very interesting stuff to write about.

I can see myself working with these characters for more books. My other main characters are Jeroan’s “little” sister Kelley (his twin sister who was born 10 minutes after him), and “Jimbo,” a gawky teen who works at an Arby’s like fast-food restaurant called Harvey’s.

Oh, and have I mentioned that Kelley and Jeroan are black, and Jimbo is second-generation Chinese? They all live in Dubuque, a city that’s predominantly white (96% white, according to a recent survey). It’s been an intriguing challenge, writing about these identity and race issues in a book packed full of stuff exploding and flying wizards and runaway riverboats. I just hope I can get it right.

Here’s my progress-o-meter — I actually had to cut a bunch of stuff, and now I’m adding in new stuff, but it’s all making the book so, so much better: