Quitting my blog...for now

Dear readers (if there are any faithful followers left!),
It is no surprise to you that I have not posted in over a year.

Blogging as an aspiring author is hard. It's not like I can post about events that I'm doing or promote my work. I review books on Goodreads, but I'm not rubbing elbows with a ton of published authors. I don't have new advice that can't be found on Google. Half the time, I don't know what to blog about. And the other half is too busy (with life and writing) to think about blogging.

So, I've decided to quit my blog officially...for now.

Going forward...
1. I'm at a pre-querying point. Meaning I queried agents and was given feedback and now need to fix things.

2. The Sequel (aka The Sisters of Odessa) -- I queried in August/September and was given feedback (from agents and critique partners and Twitter contest judges) that my first chapters need more work. It was discouraging to hear that five years (!) of work still culminates in more revisions. But it was also reaffirming because I knew in my gut that something was wrong with the opening chapters. With the awareness of the We Need Diverse Books movement, I'm actually thinking about tweaking The Sequel a bit more than just the first chapters.

3. I haven't stopped writing. Actually, I've been inspired by the We Need Diverse Books movement and have started writing Asian-American main characters. It's been liberating, and I may have found my niche (yay).

4. I wrote most of a book during NaNoWriMo 2016, and readers, THIS MAY BE THE ONE that breaks into the market. I know I feel like that during every new project, but this one is really special. It's also a solid middle grade book, which I have never written, and I'm loving the shorter format (35,000 words vs. 85,000 words, big difference).

5. I will continue to update my progress on the sidebar, even though I won't be blogging about it.

6. I joined a new critique group (which includes Mary E. Lambert), and that connection brought me into a separate AZ MG/YA Writers group that meets in Tempe. This group includes debut authors and agented authors and actively querying authors.

7. The group has lit a fire. Every time we meet, I'm moved to get off my butt and get to the point where I am actively querying again. It's a scary thought to be actively querying, but I can be brave. I love the honesty of the group members through their publishing journeys.

So, all of that is to say that I have joined a new social network: Twitter.

You can follow me @KChowrites.

But I can't promise I'll be regularly posting because I seem to have problems with that. ;-)
Love, Karen