Thursday, April 15, 2010

Work in Progress--Just One?


I see people posting on their blogs and Facebook about their WIP's. I do the same thing now and then, but I know that no one--other than a few of my closest writer friends--has a clue what my "WIP" actually is when I post.

So, here's the low-down:

I've completed Finding Angel, a YA novel of just over 100,000 words, and am shopping it around.

I'm about half-way through the sequel (somewhere around 50,000 words). The working title on this one is Seeking Unseen.

There will be a third book in the series (title undetermined) that is in the planning stages right now, but I've not officially started writing it.

A fourth book--a prequel--has developed as well. I started what I intended to be a short story, but the plot has grown to the point where it will eventually be an entire novel.

Completely unrelated to the above series is a novel I'm about 20,000 words through right now. Working title is Guilty. This one is not a YA--it's adult, paranormal....something. Not quite thriller, not quite romance. I guess I'll have to wait until it's done to truly label it. It stemmed from my short story, "Willing Blood," but is not related to that story in any true sense. Mainly, I took the same characters and put them in a whole different situation.

And I've always got short WIP's going. Short fiction is something I really enjoy writing. I love that the stories can be completely in a matter of weeks, sometimes days, and I can submit them and get them published quickly. (Although, right now I have quite a few I've been waiting a rather long time to hear back on.) I write short personal experience stories as they hit me as well, and those are nice for the same reasons--quick turnaround.

So...what about you? What are your WIP's a the moment? I know the answer for a few of you, but I'd still like to hear from everyone. Are you focusing on a novel? More than one? Got any short stories in the works?

9 comments:

KM Wilsher said...

Hey Kat! What a fun post. Its funny you are a surprise. You don't update us often. It's just all of the sudden: My short story is coming out in XXXXX or Look I have an essay in XXXXX. It's fun to see it laid out.
Wow! You are so far on the sequels! I am really surprised.

I am beefin up Cobra in case by some miracle I were to place in Genesis. I have an unfinished short story, sci fi, temporarily called Prayer Room that is almost done. I can't wait to play with that one more.

I don't have much time to write. I work 35 hours go to school - that and church and the recovery groups. . ug.
But I write on breaks, lunches, on the plane, and all hours of the morning you can find me updating my FB: I am still awake at 2am? Guess I'll write.

Fun! Kat. I love to see the updates. Hope you will do more of them. Of all my writing friends, yours are the most difficult to keep up with. You have sooo much out there! I am so proud of you!

Kat Heckenbach said...

Well, KM, the only reason I'm so far on the sequel is that I started it when I was editing Finding Angel. It actually feels like it's taking forever, because I was done with my first draft of FA in three months! I had to do a year's worth of editing, though, so in between beta readers, I got to work on the sequel.

I'm impressed with how much you write! You're so busy, KM--I don't know how you juggle it all! I'm proud of you, too. And can't wait for the day Cobra Cutlass is a book and in my hand :).

Unknown said...

Hello, Kat. My WIP right now is Black Earth: The Broken Daisy, the sequel to Black Earth: End of the Innocence, my edgy science fiction/fantasy that I self-published late last year.

After I finish that, I am going to redo my young adult series, Expired Reality, and reedit the first two books and finish writing the third. So that's two series that I have in the works that will run parallel to each other.

Like you, I love to write short fiction as well, mainly to show off characters from my novels that wouldn't otherwise get a spotlight. I have a short fiction series on the back burner right now that I hope to resurrect in the next month or so. It would be a 5-6 page story I would release every other week or every month that would tie in with my young adult series. Fun stuff!

Glad to hear you have so much going for you right now. So many projects, I'm sure it's nice when you get writer's block in one and can leap to another.

Good luck with everything! :D

Shawna K. Williams said...

Well, you know what I'm up to Kat. In All Things is 62,000 words, but only half of them are worth anything. I'm letting Orphaned Heart percolate a little longer before I work on extending it.

I gave you a couple of blog awards on my blog.

Brandon Barr said...

I'm working on my novel MIND RIDE very very slowly... :( Like KM said, time is hard to come by at the moment. And I've got a few short stories out and about awaiting acceptance/rejection.

Just curious, how much time do you spend a week writing on average??

And what's this GUILTY book?? I haven't heard of that one yet :)

LynnRush said...

I just finished a WIP last week, untitled as of yet. But I can't have more than one started at the same time.

I crank out a bunch of words but it's a complete story. Then, I let it sit for a month (If I can wait that long) and then go back to it and flesh it out. . . .

But I can't have two open ended stories going at the same time. . .. can't keep it all straight when I try and do that.

:-)

Kat Heckenbach said...

Brandon, I couldn't tell you exactly how much time I spend writing. I write in spurts. I sometimes go days or more without writing anything. Then an idea will hit, and I'll write until it's out.

As for Guilty...it's a novel I decided to write because I loved the characters from my short story "Willing Blood" so much. It's not an expansion on that story or anything--it's more or less the same characters but in a completely different situation. There are some similarities, of course, but I've made changes to the characters' histories and relationships to each other.

Kat Heckenbach said...

Lynn--you blow me away with the number of novels you pound out one after another! I'm glad to hear you have your limits :).

Jennifer Shirk said...

I only work on one at a time. I just finished chapter 3 on it so far. *sigh*