I’ve been working on my detailed synopsis for REDEEMER this week. It’s going pretty well, actually: I’ve done about 5k–well, I’ve probably written 7 or 8K, including random thoughts about worldbuilding and stuff–and I’ve opened it up to my Brainstorming Filter, which–I’ve always brainstormed with Ted and my friend Trent, but previous to STONE’S THROE I’d never done *much* brainstorming outside of them. I needed help with STONE’S THROE and opened it up to a small group of friends and writers (don’t ask, I won’t put you on it), and had so much fun brainstorming I’ve been making it a more regular feature of my writing.

This, combined with the detailed synopsis that comes out of it, is a great boon to the forward motion of a book. If I’ve done it right I’m not hitting any snags while writing, which means I’m far more likely to hit my max possible wordcount (around 2K) in an hour, which…well, helps, obviously. Maximises writing time, which is great, and makes the 10-15 hours spent wrangling the synopsis well worth it.

So yeah. That’s going well. Two steps forward.

One step back: my agent reports there’s sufficient editorial backlash against post apocalyptic dystopic young adult books that nobody wants to buy my own such book, which is…not surprising, but disappointing. I was hoping it was good enough (because it *is* good) to get past the fact that editors (if not readers & fans, because I haven’t noticed anybody stopping with THE HUNGER GAMES or DIVERGENT) are tired of it. Editors were tired of urban fantasy in 2003, too, when I sold URBAN SHAMAN; UF was On The Way Out in editorial opinion, but readers carried it along for another decade before starting to hit any kind of real fatigue. So that’s too bad, because I did like it a lot and would have liked to have told that story. Ah well.