At long last (or so it seems), I finished Breaking Dawn and thus Stephenie Meyer’s stunning Twilight saga. While I thoroughly enjoyed each of the books and read them ravenously, I can’t say that I’m now feeling even the slightest bit bereft. I’m satisfied and not regretful that there won’t be another book. Even though it’s possible that one day there will be…

Anyway, the point of this post is that, much like the Harry Potter series, I couldn’t help but be impressed–stunned really–over how cohesive and well-thought out the whole series was. I couldn’t help but wonder how many elements that seemed to fall perfectly into place were pre-planned and how many were just happy coincidences. It struck me that I’d love to see a book (or hear a talk) from one of these authors discussing their process of researching, brainstorming, planning, and writing an amazingly cohesive series. Both series are even more astounding being as they’re written by first time authors.

I don’t currently have an inclination to do a series or trilogy, but that said, I love reading them, and I do think it might be sort of fun. Anyone have another favorite series? Or is anyone working on a series of their own???

I really, really need to start writing again. I realize that, I do, but it’s as if the time I had for writing has disappeared. Like when you delve into a jar of marshmallow creme and scoop out more than you should–it leaves a stretchy-looking void. But then you come back later and the void is gone, leaving only a pristine surface of sugary white to mar anew. (Yep, I like my marshmallow creme.) Well, I scooped out writing, and I suppose I was expecting time to just present itself once again now that summer is over. It hasn’t. Admittedly I’ve had my boys home due to the hurricane, and I’m still working both Tuesday and Thursday at Mother’s Day Out–yesterday was the first day back after the hurricane, and it was like starting all over. At one point or another nearly all of them were screaming-crying. Ay caramba! So I’m playing catch-up. And I’m reading Breaking Dawn, which is sucking me in and demanding quite a bit of time and attention. And I’m enjoying my little bits of extra reading time very much. But…duty calls. This week. I will start Book 3 this week. I will. And then I’ll celebrate with a scoop of marshmallow creme. No one will know–the evidence will just disappear.

I’m resigned to the reality that I didn’t accomplish what I’d intended to over the summer. Well really the summer, plus–it’s been almost four months now. Four months I’ve been waiting to see if there’s any agent interest in my recently finished novel. And while I know that summer is a slow time for the publishing industry, I hadn’t quite realized just how slow.

I have partials out to three agents, and one agent has the full, and I’ve not heard from any of them in what seems like ages, and in reality is between four weeks and four months. I have a definitely feeling of limbo. I’m not sure what to do with the book. Should I attempt a rewrite, as suggested by an agent I did hear back from at the beginning of the summer? Should I hang tight and wait to hear from these agents? I tried sending one of them a follow-up email, but I haven’t gotten a reply to that either. But what if my pages got caught up in a vicious spam filter and never reached their intended audience? I think maybe I should have typed ‘REQUESTED MATERIAL’ in the subject line, but there were no instructions given for requested material and very specific instructions given for queries, so I basically hit ‘Reply’ to the agent’s reply to my original query, keeping the subject line pretty much intact. Now I’m not so sure that was a good idea. But I have no way of knowing. At least not at the moment. Not until I get a reply…or don’t.

The boys go back to school on Monday. And after a few days of getting things back in order I’m going to have to make some sort of decision. Start working on some revisions or throw myself into the next book. I’m not looking forward to the decision.