Entering #PitchWars and Working on Draft #6

I entered #PitchWars today! This was me all week long:

Seriously, I was such a good girl this entire week, even though I had just finished my internship last week. I didn't even procrastinate!

I'm nervous, but what I love about #PitchWars were the sheer number of writers I've connected with, and have been able to exchange query, synopsis, and sample chapter critiques with! It was like a revising and writing encouragement, and I absolutely loved it. Can I attend Pitch parties every week please?

No, wait, then I probably wouldn't get enough sleep...

LOL, and that is my August 2014 update!

Draft #5 is Finished!

Wow, I haven't updated my blog for a while! I've been crazy-busy, and have an internship in social media marketing for a start up in the financial district of San Francisco for 12 weeks this summer. Seeing that social media plays a big part into the whole author business, I love getting to play around and strategize with social media and Google Analytics all day, hehe. This is way more fun than taking classes, though I am looking forward (and am hella nervous) to taking anatomy and working with cadavers in the Fall.

Anyway, for 8 hours straight today while I was working at my receptionist job (thank goodness the office and the phones were quiet for the most part today!), I finished draft #5 of my novel!

I sent off my manuscript to a few of my reliable beta readers so far (in Google Doc, Word Doc, or PDF, depending on their preference).

I'd rest, but I'm just so excited and agitated, my mind and body won't let me! I'm going to polish my synopsis and query drafts now.

I end this post with a Calvin and Hobbes strip. :)

Draft #4 Completed

It's 2:30 AM as I type this, and it has been 275 days since I first began to plan my current novel. 275 days, and draft #4 is done! I went through 10 chapters within the past 12 hours, editing them all and adding on paragraphs to a few of them. Yes, there are patches of roughness that I'm mortified about, but after tinkering with several passages for hours upon hours and days after days, it's time to get feedback from beta-readers.

From Hayao Miyazaki's latest film The Wind Rises

I've had other people read up to the first 11, 13, or 14 chapters, but now, for the very first time, all 39 chapters shall receive critique. Bring it oooooooooooonnnn!

Spring Break Novel Progress

It has been 260 days since I started planning my novel. I'm still working on the New Adult Steampunk BDSM Little Red Riding Hood novel. I'm currently on draft #4, and printed out my entire manuscript, and went through the entire thing with a red pen.

Right now, it's a matter of trying to make some horribly-written passages sound prettier before I seek out round #2 of beta reads.

*Sigh* I failed to finish that this spring break. But hopefully soon!

Revisionland Over Finals Week

I really should continue studying for my final, which is tomorrow evening, but no, my novel is calling my name from my Google Docs.

 I am much more compelled to refine my first 11 chapters than stuff facts about pepsin and the ratio of gut bacteria to the rest of the human body into my mushy memory.

I've been very burnt out this semester. I'm trying not to make this blog post a rant. Just want to say typing and revising draft #2 of my novel is a lot more fun than applying myself to austere academics, and I am very, very apathetic about finals. I haven't had a proper rest from school in an extremely long time (my past 3 summers were dominated by summer classes), and I'm intellectually worn out. I just hope my winter holiday break in Asia (Tokyo and Taipei! I'm so excited!) will provide the much-needed rejuvenation my mind and body needs. And, of course, I'll be typing up draft #2 and revising along the way. As I said in an email I sent to my creative writing class yesterday, Scarlett and Jude have dominated (pun intended) my life for the past 5-6 months, and they won't leave me alone any time soon. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Their presence in my life is made much more bearable by the incredibly giddy fact that I have willing beta readers. They make me very, very happy, a much-needed injection of holiday cheer for me. :)

I credit author Erin Morgenstern for coining the name "Revisionland."

Draft #1 of Novel Finished

On November 30 at approximately 2 AM, coinciding with the last day of NanoWrimo 2013, I have finished draft #1 of my novel! It's a very crappy first draft though, and the biggest thing that needs to be polished, in my opinion, is the strength of the supporting characters, but draft #1 is finished, nonetheless! In class, everyone was asked to provide images that could be potential covers for our stories. I created a moodboard to create a sensibility of my story, as opposed to a definite book cover.

 

I've been sharing snippets with my creative writing class. Oh wait, that reminds me, did I ever share a summary of my novel? Let's see...looking at my past blog posts, I have not! *smacks head*

Anyhow, the main idea of my story is that it is a BDSM steampunk Little Red Riding Hood-inspired new adult novel. Below is the summary:

SUMMARY DRAFT

Scarlett vows to save her virginity for marriage. Haunted by the sexually-transmitted disease V.A.I.N., which killed both of her parents, Scarlett studies at Sylva University with the hopes of researching for a cure. While she is determined to stay innocent throughout her academic career, one wolfishly handsome professor, Jude Tanner, sees her virginity as a prize to be won. As much as Scarlett denies his advances, he knows that she is not as innocent as she seems. When Jude catches Scarlett violating a university policy, he sees this as an opportunity to toy with her and put her virginity and future at stake. He makes a deal with her: she can choose to stay a virgin until marriage, or be expelled from Syla University and become his slave.

Of course Scarlett chooses the former, but the deal is not so simple. Scarlett becomes Jude’s housemate, and during their time together, he takes her to a sadomasochistic amusement park, and tempts her and slowly breaks down her innocence. Will Scarlett be able to honor her parents’ deaths by remaining a virgin and finding a cure to VAIN? Or will she succumb to her primitive desires and become Professor Tanner’s slave?

I was sharing excerpts in my creative writing class, and I was overwhelmingly giddy to see how engaged my classmates were with my characters. At the final class of the semester this past Tuesday, everyone was demanding to know what happens in the end, and asked, "Do Scarlett and Jude finally have sex in the end???????"

I told them what happened, to relieve them of a whole semester's worth of literary sexual teasing (they deserved knowing the ending!). But if you're reading this, and you want to know, that's for you to find out! ;)

I'm typing up chapter 3 of draft #2 right now!

Slave Auction at Master's Den

I have already added a slave auction in my novel blueprint, towards the second half of it, but just last night, I experienced it in real life, even if it was consensual and in a safe environment.

I attended Master's Den, an event for male dominants and female submissives, at the Citadel in San Francisco last night. My friend invited me to go last month, and yesterday, as she and I were getting ready, she asked me, "So, what do you hope to get out of the evening?"

I suppose even Batman sees the appeal of an auction? LOL

I guess my answer was somewhat of a strange one. I wasn't planning on meeting cute guys, nor was I sure if I was even expecting an overall positive experience. I was indeed looking forward to being sold at the slave auction, and told her, "I'm mainly going to get real-life experience for my novel."

"Ooooh!" My friend already knows I'm writing, but she was intrigued by my answer. "Academic literary research!"

My 2 cards, worn as my bracelet for the entire evening. The images of the queens are so pretty!

Once there, all the women wore cards either as necklaces or bracelets. The Master's Den website lists what the 4 different cards mean, but I'll repeat them here:

• The Queen of Clubs indicate you have a S/M or Bondage service to offer.
• The Queen of Diamonds indicates you have a non-sexual service to offer.
• The Queen of Hearts indicates you have a Sexual Service to offer.
• The Queen of Spades indicates you are offering services for S/M, Bondage, Nonsexual and Sexual Service.

There were 2 auctions, and 10 girls' names were randomly drawn to be sold for each auction. I was so surprised when my name was drawn for the second auction at 10:00! I actually gave a squeal of delight! There were so many girls who looked forward to being auctioned off, so my friends and I didn't think any of us were going to be randomly chosen until my name was announced.

Being auctioned off was a surreal experience. It was my first time at the Citadel, and at Master's Den, AND being auctioned! I was told that was very brave of me. It was so heated and competitive! The prices went up and was being duked out between at least two doms in the crowd, and the winning bid was $11,500. Damn. 

The Citadel in San Francisco's Yelp is full of positive reviews. There was such an interesting atmosphere. It felt so surreal to actually be in a place where you witness girls in formal dresses, corsets, and/or lingerie being willingly collared, leashed, and led around by dominant men in suits. And being surrounded by countless play sessions, hearing the sharp, snapping impacts of leather implements against skin, and screams and moans of girls competing with the dancey/industrial music reverberating throughout the rooms.

I wonder how I'll be able to execute the slave auction scene once I reach that chapter (I always write in chronological order).

Magic of Suspension

REPOST: Originally posted on my modelling blog, but with some tailoring done for my author blog.

In my BDSM-themed Little Red Riding Hood novel, I'm definitely going to incorporate some bondage and suspension! Real-life experience like this is valuable, it would be a total waste if I didn't do so.

But wait! Before you freak out, I do hope you'll allow me to enlighten you on Japanese bondage.

In my "other life" as a non-erotic model, I've noticed that I kind of get raised eyebrows when I express my newfound love for shibari/kinbaku and suspension. The type of questions and comments I have received lately range from the pleasantly curious to the astonished (for lack of a snarkier word) conservatives. Examples below:

"Please explain more about shibari!"

"Does it hurt?"

"I don't see what's so great about bondage."

"That's freaky s***. I'd only let you tie me up if you blow me."

"Why do you like being tied up and suspended? I don't see the appeal."

My simple answer to the last question: It's the closest feeling to levitating.

Photo by Ota Kinbaku

Since shibari/kinbaku (I kind of use those two terms interchangeably, but this Wikipedia article has a glossary that's more enlightening than my articulation abilities) is very popular in erotic photography, I used to shy away from bondage until I came across some beautiful photos that really captured the beauty of the non-sexual aspects of the practice. I fell in love with shibari for the creative aesthetics and the art of ties and knots and rope patterns and how the human body is supported. Here are some beautiful inspirations to me:

Photo by Sphinx Carnival

Photo by Garth Knight

This pose! I absolutely love this balletic pose!

Credits unknown

Everyone's body handles suspension differently due to the fact that everyone has different weight-to-balance ratio, and different tolerance levels. When done right, I think rope looks so beautiful, and even (dare I say?) empowering (I know, that sounds like a contradiction. How the hell can someone look empowered when they're tied up?).

I really fell in love with the art of it, and the fact that the practice really emphasizes communication and trust between the rigger (the person who ties up others) and the bottom (the person being tied up). I've been lucky to have worked with riggers (they include Ota Kinbaku, Dan of Two Knotty Boys, and the husband-wife-team of The Trousseau) who know what they're doing and are super-communicative with me by checking in on me every minute or so while they're tying me up (a simple "How are you doing?" or "How does this feel?" is sufficient). I guess thanks to that trust and level of professionalism, I get to have lots of fun pretending I'm levitating, heheheee.

Photo by Ota Kinbaku

I was having dinner with a good friend of mine. He asked me if it hurt to be suspended. I only told him it does if it's done improperly, and that there are certain techniques that riggers have to be aware of when rigging someone, such as the fact that one cannot be tied around the joints, and that there are certain ways of tying that allows the bottom to still have a normal functioning blood circulation. I liked the response my friend gave me. He remarked, "Wow! There's really an art to this! One that requires a lot of trust!"

Very keen insight on his part, I must say. Being tied up and suspended is not an action any sensible person should entrust to just any rigger. And every good rigger should feel the same! I've been told that riggers have to be wary of people who have never been tied up, but are curious about it. Especially since once the prospect of being tied up becomes reality, the newbie might become anxious and freak out. That's when the rigger knows that the plan for being tied up should be aborted, for the sake of everyone's physical and mental safety. Not to mention I've heard of horror stories of incompetent riggers that resulted in severe injuries, paralysis, and even deaths of the bottoms. *shudders*

Yet, regardless of its connotation with erotic photography, the art of bondage and suspension is a magical sensation that I really enjoy. I hope this post was at least somewhat enlightening, and that this will pique your interest in my novel when it's ready. I just finished chapter 2 last night!

I'm a Goodreads Author!

My oh my, I just received an email that I'm now listed on Goodreads as an official author! With my very own author page!

I feel kind of further validated as a writer...my "author photo" is taken by Tamara Locke

 

Since I was a contributor of Thrones of Desire, I qualified for an author page, and after emailing the Goodreads moderators, TA-DAAA!!!!! Despite the unfruitful queries of my last novel, this boosts my spirit.

I've also been receiving feedback on the draft summary of my new novel, which I will now state, is a New Adult fantasy BDSM-themed Little Red Riding Hood-inspired story. I spent the last day taking notes on the symbolisms within the story, derived from the original tale, and am now organizing the plot. I'm happy to say I'm receiving a handful of positive comments, though of course there are always going to be naysayers sprinkled into the bunch. Perhaps I shall dedicate another blog post to the feedback.

New Blog Layout

I've been absent from this blog for quite a while, due to that terrible miscarriage of the intended agent representation of my middle-grade fantasy novel. I've been suffering writer's block for the past several months. I never knew it could feel so terrible. Never before in my life had I ever sat before a computer screen or a notebook for hours, and be at loss for producing anything.

But I'm back! Just last week, an idea for a New Adult novel came to me with full force. I'm astounded--after spending months floundering in frustration, I've spent a whole week feeling elated and writing notes to plan out this new novel. I've been fleshing out characters, their motivations, drawing on BDSM and fetishes and my experience of being tied up and suspended (yes, you read that right! Wow, a lot has happened since I last updated this blog) and am now in the middle of building the story world and incorporating steampunk elements.

This is hopefully my 4th novel I will be able to complete an entire draft of. For now, here is one image that alludes to what my novel is about.

Do you like my blog layout too? It's been dramatically altered to reflect the sensibilities of this new novel too. :)

Query Adventures Thus Far

Happy (belated) new year everyone!
I revived this blog a year ago, and after a  few months of neglect (this past semester was my most fun, but also the most stressful, semester yet!), I'm back! I just turned 20 on New Year's Day. Good bye teen years, hello twenties!

I really do wonder what the next ten years have in store for me.

I shall start this post with the gingerbread voodoo dolls that I baked on Christmas. My first time baking gingerbread--not too bad, I suppose. One of my friends thought they were gingerbread zombies. They can be thought of such as well. :)

I have been querying for over a month now. My partial is sitting in a couple of prestigious hands. I describe the feeling as this following recipe:

1 cup of exhilaration
1/2 cup of hope
1/4 cup of anxiety
1 tablespoon of childish impatience
1 teaspoon of dread

Just today, an amazing agent who touts an impressive client list requested the first 50 pages and a synopsis. She's the first one to request a synopsis! So, here I go revising and polishing my synopsis.

They were right when they say novel synopses are evil little cads to write.

But I shouldn't complain--I'm just so excited with where my querying journey is taking me!!!!! Onward upon my sailing ship built of manuscript pages, sailing through a sea of slush pile query letters!

Speaking of ships, I stumbled across a photo of this PHENOMENAL rubber ducky pirate ship!

P.S. I suspect the next few blog posts will recap what I've been up to in the writing world lately.

Manuscript!

Wow, blog updates have been rather scant lately.
But I'm happy to say I finally finished my manuscript! My entire novel went through 3 (a few chapters had 4) drafts. I received an interest in my novel from an agent, but I can't say more than that.

School is crazy as well. Midterms just won't stop coming! The week after Thanksgiving, I have 3 exams, and then two weeks later, I have finals. It's been eating into my writing time, but I do make it a priority to write, especially since I go nuts if I don't have any creative outlet.

Well, here I go! Going into my last round of midterms, finals week, all while going through pesky edits of my manuscript and querying.

October Update--Close to Query-Ready!

Oh my goodness, it's October already?????

*GASP*

The time!

I'm happy to say I'm more than halfway done with my manuscript. In fact, an agent knows that the second half of the novel is not ready yet, but I'm glad that she requested the first 10 pages, and after reading that, she then requested the first 50 pages (You might be wondering why an agent has the 50 pages before my manuscript is ready. Well, long story).

Sure hope I can get this done by the end of the month, if I'm being super optimistic about it. But we'll see!

Meanwhile, much of my blogging has been done for Caliber Magazine. My author archive is here, and I am very happy to say that I will be interviewing Peter Ramsey, the director of Dreamwork's newest upcoming animated film Rise of the Guardians. Stay tuned! :)

A year ago...

Happy Labor Day! I hope everyone is having a lovely 3 day weekend.

Photo from here

I still remember the day I started writing my novel, sans all of the planning I did during summer 2011. It was September 1, 2011, a Thursday. I had gone to Rockridge Library to borrow Catherynne M. Valente's newest middle-grade fantasy novel The Girl Who Had Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. As I was sitting on the bench at the Rockridge BART station, in the shade provided by the train tracks and the highways high above my head, I felt the time was right to start penning the very first words of my novel.

She would keep her secrets lodged in her throat, tucked away behind a silver lock that was one and whole with the fair skin on her smooth neck.

It just felt right to keep on writing and writing. When the 51B came howling into the station to take me back to Berkeley, and everyone packed onto the bus, I sat on the bus, feeling as though I was in a trance on that sunny afternoon. I sat next to an adorable Asian (or half-Asian?) little girl with her mother. The little girl was carrying a teddy bear. I told her that her teddy bear was very adorable, and she went on to tell me her teddy bear's name and that everyone in her class was responsible for taking care of it every week. She was responsible for taking care of her class's teddy bear that week, and said that one time, one of the teddy bears from her class got lost, and everyone was very upset.

Imagine that, instead of "7, Arlington, Kensington," the bus says "51B, U.C. Campus, via College Ave"

Now, one year later, I have three written publications, and I'm now on chapter 13 of draft #3. I'm hoping to have draft #3 completed by 2013.

Continuing on my journey to being a published novelist!

Photo of the 51B bus from here

11th Free “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest (Middle Grade Fiction)

I was checking my email last night and found this contest, the 11th free "Dear Lucky Agent" contest! With very positive reviews on the first few chapters of my fantasy middle-grade novel, I thought, "Hey, why not enter?"

The genre is middle-grade fiction too!

The top 3 winners all get...
1) A critique of the first 10 double-spaced pages of your work, by your agent judge, Sara Sciuto of Full Circle Literary Agency.
2) A free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com.

Sara Sciuto of Full Circle Literary Agency.

Well, here I go, promoting the contest on my Twitter and modeling Facebook page too! Wish me luck.

Writer's Digest Helps Me Deal With Writer's Block

Last week started out with a creativity renewal. I was quite productive.

With draft #3, I am splitting up a lot of the chapters in draft #2 in separate, shorter (and sometimes fleshed-out, due to necessity of character development) chapters. There are also some new scenes, which I hope will enrich the plot. I was able to get up to draft #3 of chapter 9. But after that, my creativity made the fatal mistake to go sky-diving. Creativity met up with a gory ending.

Let's hope these skydivers had a more successful sky dive than Creativity did!

How am I dealing with this? Well, first, I read my September 2012 issue of Writer's Digest. It has Chris Cleave on the cover, but what really stood out to me about the issue's cover were the captions "7 Strategies for More Productive Writing" and "Learn to Be Creative on Demand."

I'm going to make a shout-out to the articles "How to be Creative on Demand" by Roger Morris and "7 Steps to a Foolproof Revision" by Don Fry. In Morris's article, one tip that stood out to me was...

Tip #2: Pump Your Skills of Observation
EXCERPT: ...Why not hone your skills of description?....Whether you're practicing by describing a restaurant's decor as you're waiting for a table, or a stunning landscape you're enjoying on vacation, use a mixture of comparisons and contrasts, plus well-picked adjectives and adverbs.

This brought back a memory from age 12, when my family and I were going for a car ride to somewhere. We were on the highway, the sun was setting, and the sky was violet, pricked with burning streaks like firebirds' tails. My mom challenged my brother and I to come up with a description of the sky.

From Fry's article:

Tip #1: Complete Your Draft, Then Revise
...it's safe to say that the longest (and ultimately the most frustrating) way to revise is to just keep writing sentences and revising them, and changing anything your revision damages.
So what's the fastest way? In my experience, it's this: Draft the entire piece with no revision whatsoever, and then revise the whole thing, start to finish (sometimes twice, if you have the time).

Holy cow, this is already what I do! This is generally how I deal with my writing, whether it's essays, short stories, poems, or even my novel. I just go through the entire thing, try to slash my way through pesky thorns, and then go back to revise and clean up.

Oh gosh, I can't resist Disney references, but........

I wish revising was this effortless...

...and not like this!

Listening to lots and lots of metal is helping too.

"Motherzone" by Deathstars

"Storms" by Siebenburgen

Well, time to get back to Chapter 14! If you guys remember my blog post "Dancing With a Paraplegic," the ball scene, the scene in which my paraplegic character Princess Isolda, is now Chapter 14.

Learning to Pitch, Part 1

I'm sure not the only one who feels this way, but I have this aggravating fear that whenever I open my mouth, I start alienating people. And for months, I've been dreading describing my novel to people. Thankfully, with some practice recently, I have gained some confidence.

Here are general outlines of my conversations with various persons (and instead of calling the person "A person," I'm calling him/her "Cookie." I am dead serious that "Cookie" is a synonym for "person" according to Merriam-Webster).

More than a year ago, when I was trying to test my premise on Deviantart.com:

Me: How does a story about an eleven-year old girl with a key-hole in her neck having to hold military secrets for a general sound?

Deviantart Cookie #1: To be honest, it sounds far fetched, even for fantasy. I like the concept of the girl, but the military purpose part sounds too far fetched. Maybe if the girl held ancient secrets, and they have to go find the key, and these secrets will help defeat the ancient evil, sounds more believable fantasy story then the military using her.

My thoughts: Thank you for the feedback...but...I'm sorry...the concept of ancient secrets and defeating an ancient evil has been done to death.

Deviantart Cookie #2: Don't ask. Write it so that it's good enough that people WILL want to read it. Deciding what to write by using a poll is no way to go about it. If you want to write it, do it.

My thoughts: I needed this advice. Thank you Deviantart Cookie #2!

Approximately 10 months ago:

Cookie: What do you do for fun?

Me: Oh, um...draw...write...um...writing my novel

Cookie: You're writing a novel? What's your novel about?

Me: Oh, um...well...it's a fantasy middle-grade novel...about a girl...um...it's in a very rough draft mode...

No further memory of conversation. Conclusion? My pitching is an UTTER FAILURE.

Approximately 4 months ago:

Cookie: What do you do when you're not doing schoolwork?

Me: I'm writing a novel.

Cookie: Really? What's your novel about?

Me: It's about an eleven year old girl who belongs to a race of people with key holes in their necks, and because of this, they're supposed to be very good at keeping military secrets. My main character's uncle needs to her befriend a paraplegic princess from a neighboring kingdom because he's trying to bring down the corrupt monarchy. But she becomes best friends with the princess, and has to choose between her loyalty to her family and to her friend.

Cookie: Wow! That sounds really original!

Yes! Yes! A positive comment on originality! That is...if she's not just trying to be polite...

That concludes part one of my pitching attempts and adventures.

Famous Failures

A friend and a very talented photographer, who I have collaborated with several times, posted this on his Facebook wall. It is images and words like this that keep me going and deal with the naysayers. However, I am ineffably giddy to say that the first three chapters of my novel have received very positive reviews thus far, so I am tickled pink and pleased with that. :)

Now, I just can't resist a knock-knock joke. It suits the topic of this post:
Knock knock!
Who's there?
The guy who failed
The guy who failed who?
See, you don't remember the failure!

Ah, but wait! Exceptions listed below. :)

 

Moral? Never give up and ignore the naysayers. Oh, and in order to effectively withstand the naysayers, keep working hard to improve whatever it is you're working on (whether it be writing, obtaining a PhD, improving your health, being a loving spouse, etc.)

The joke must be revised!

Knock knock!
Who's there?
The guy who gave up
The guy who gave up who?
See, you'll never remember the guy who gave up!

Summer Adventures So Far...

Yes, I have been absent due to a lovely family vacation in Alaska and Canada. I just love the beauty of northern wildlife and scenery, and the Hubbard Glacier was spectacular!

Some bullet points:

• Revising a third draft is harder than I thought it would be! There are just so many minute details to clean up, take out, add in, create from scratch, and all that jazz. It's harder to find adequate time to sit down and spend several hours chipping huge chunks from my to-do-for-novel list because...
• I'm back at Cal for an 8-week calculus class that doesn't end until August. After that, I have about two weeks left of summer. Ick.
• I got to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I love the book, and I enjoyed the film very much, though I was disappointed with the changes made for the film. But overall, it was wonderful to treat myself to the film on opening day after a calculus quiz.
• Hopefully I can restart the Writer of the Week feature next week. I have some new authors lined up now!

Well, time to get back to calculus. In the meantime, here is a music trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter with one of Linkin Park's newest songs "Powerless." I was seriously addicted to this trailer and song for a while, and more than a week later, the song is still stuck in my head. This trailer was what convinced me that the film adaption would be worth checking out in theaters.

Draft #2 is Done!

I finished this morning! Draft #2 of my novel is complete! After 272 days after starting draft #1 (or 143 days after finishing draft #1), I'm done with the second draft! This is how I felt right after typing out the final words of the epilogue:

 But wait! Now I have to work on draft #3!

Ah, yes, draft #3. I have a new scene in mind that I have to (most likely) insert in chapter 2. Invent a name for a religion. Refine and polish my writing. Build up the roles of a few characters. Give a better reason for why certain children have to regurgitate beautiful silver charms. And several other surgical performances to render my manuscript alluring enough to present to agents.

Can I possibly finish draft #3 and have my manuscript be query-ready by the end of summer? Along with conquering my evil mandatory calculus course, which I have to get a good grade in upon pain of death?