Ok, so I finally broke down and paid for someone to look at my query letter.  Now, the thing is, I decided to toss my old query letter and start a whole new one (since I rebooted Grimaulkin, I might as well).

I got an excellent critique back.  No, not a request for more chapters.  But an excellent idea that I think I’m going to use when I rewrite Grim yet again.  However, this time, I’m not going to squeeze it all into one book like I did with the second rewrite.  This third rewrite, I’ll go back to the original and tear it apart again.

I’m ready to do the rewrite, except…

I had a really awesome dream one night.  What if the US Army used wizards?  What if there was a special corps of wizards, the Magic Corps?  What if they were in modern-day Afghanistan?

The dream was told from the POV of a young (21 y.o.) powerful wizard.  He’s different than most wizards, in that he doesn’t even have to utter the spell – he just waves his hand and people go flying.  In the dream, the platoon is ambushed and he’s captured, and I force the dream to end there.

I forced myself awake and wrote the dream down.  The next morning, it was scribblings, but I could make out some things and most of the dream returned to mind.  I started to write it.

I haven’t stopped.

I’ve decided to write it in longhand.  It’s got a lot of padding, and I can see where I can tighten it, but I’m going to get it out on the page first.  That’s the important thing, no?

Transcribed, it’s 7,000 words with maybe another 2,500 to be transcribed.  So maybe 10K over 3 days.  Pretty slow, if you ask me.  But writing longhand slows me down and gives me a minute to think about what next.  Or what down the road.  Or what I’m going to use as Chekov’s gun.

I’m looking at the notebook here, and there’s a plot point I’m burning to hit…