July Word Count

July's goals were not word quotas, but rather Things Being Done. To wit:

Finish revamping the query - Done
Finish the novel revisions - Done
Rewrite the synopsis - not done.

I'm a bit frustrated with myself over the synopsis, but two out of three ain't bad. Especially when it's those two. I got the orphan reference inserted reasonably smoothly in the one and only place it apparently could go, the additional action bit works per my beta, and I finally tweaked the very last paragraph into something I'm happy with. The query will be getting a test-drive this weekend, which hopefully will yield some good data, if nothing else. And I did at least get the outline done, which was the prerequisite for the next synopsis attempt.

Just for the record:

first novel revisions: 222
post-novel novella & etc.: 2372
old-mission stories: 1150

Total new words in July: 3744

Not bad, considering.

To con or not to con?

Am considering going to Bouchercon. It's still appallingly expensive, but this year it's as close as it's likely to get.

I would really like to get to know some people working in the same genre as I am. Which Bouchercon may or may not be the venue for; espionage is sort of mystery's bastard step-sibling at best. But I'm not finding a better option, and ultimately the only way to know is to go and find out.