Happy 2017 everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season full of food, family and fun. Are you ready to be back in the real world? Nope, neither am I.

What I Read

Between the holidays and some major revision work, December was a light reading month. But I did get to experience the magic of the year 2118, peek into life on a Christmas tree farm, and learn a new algorithm to improve your story

GRAND TOTAL: 3

The Thousandth Floor by Katherine McGee

What Light by Jay Asher

The Story Solution by Eric Edson

What I Wrote

As you may remember from last month’s wrap up, I’ve got revision on the brain. For the first three weeks of December, I took red pen and multiple different colors of highlighter to a printed version of State of Grace and slowly edited my way through. Then the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I locked myself in my apartment and got to work.

I cut 26,000 words.

I added six chapters of brand new material.

I focused on increasing the stakes, speeding up the pace, and balancing the subplots with the overarching main plot.

And I am really proud of the finished product.

Coming up in January…

Soon I will be sending the new draft of State of Grace back to the four agents who requested revisions and will resume querying. Fingers crossed everyone!

As far as reading goes, I know I will need a pretty good list to keep me distracted. The first two are leftovers from last month’s list that I didn’t get to, and the last two were Christmas presents.

• The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer
• Nutshell by Ian McEwan
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (Yes, I have read this before… several times, but I received a gorgeous, illustrated version for Christmas. That combined with finally getting to see Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them makes me think it’s time for a HP reread.)

Let me know how you did on your holiday writing, and I wish you a fabulous start to the New Year!