Third Draft of THE MEMORY THIEF is Finished

That’s right–it’s done. I cut abut 6,000 words from the draft. Tweaked a few characters, but it was mainly a tightening pass through. For those of you who are interested, I updated the chart for the book. I don’t know if these are interesting to anyone but me, but the charts are *dang* interesting to me, and so I inflict them on you periodically. It’s just fun for me to see how the book clipped along (or didn’t, as the case may be).

So the next question is “What does Bryce work on next?”

As I posted a few days ago, I have some ideas on how to fix GET CUPID, and I ran those ideas past friends and agents alike, and they think they’re pretty solid fixes, too. (Or at the very least worth giving a whirl and seeing what happens.)

But.

As I looked over the novel, I started thinking it was all too familiar to me. Too fresh still. Ideally, I’d like some more space between me and it before I go back to revise it once more. Since I (hopefully) have a different book that’s almost ready for submission (cross your fingers for MEMORY THIEF), I’m not in any real rush to get a second one ready to go out the same month or anything. So I think I have some time, and I’ll let the book mull a while longer.

So what else do I have on tap? I’ve sent my agents a number of ideas, and we’ll see what they think sounds most intriguing. I had a concept for a dystopia a while ago, but I’m kind of thinking those are played out at the moment. I’ve got an idea for a horror story that might be fun. (More horror than MEMORY THIEF, which turned out to not be that horrific, after all.) Then there are some other revisions I could look at, or some older ideas I’ve had for a while.

While I mull that over, I’ll likely work on this year’s Christmas short story that I send out to family members as part of my yearly Christmas gift. Not sure what I’ll do this time. I’ve had talking mice, talking groundhogs, a Christmas trap, Buttersby saving Christmas . . . part of me would really love doing a VODNIK Christmas, and it’s early enough in the season that I might be able to have enough time to pull it off. Tomas sees some of the Slovak Christmas traditions, and a few of them get more up close and personal than he’d really like them to get. Something on the short side, and fun. But can I write it, plot it, and revise it in time? (I don’t think I could publish it online for all of you faithful readers, alas. That might tromp on some contract’s toes. Maybe first I’ll see how it turns out, and if I stick with that idea at all. One of these days I’d like to lump all the Christmas short stories I’ve done and sell ’em as ebooks or something fun. In an ideal world, I’d commission a Buttersby Christmas illustration to go with it all. Because nothing says yuletide cheer like an alpaca in a Santa suit.

Anyway–that’s all I’ve got for you today. Catch ya next week!

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