February 2026 Daily Writing Challenge

[Nether]

Day 3 was 28 marked pages reviewed (GB, round 2), some attempts at adding descriptions, 4 agents queried, and 1 nudge (plus 2 rejections)

If nothing else, I got through the remaining marked pages on my second pass. However, I'd really wanted to also take care of slotting in some descriptions. I think I might've found an alright place to describe the trouble-making friend on page 3 (after waffling over describing him on page 1). Then I was also debating on whether to add a description for the cowardly friend on the first page, but hesitated and now I've also been reconsidering the brief reference on the third page. No idea where or when I might describe the other friend.

On the agent front, I CNR'd an agent who didn't respond to an October query, only to realize she'd been pretty fast to respond to my other queries and she mentioned you could nudge after 8 weeks, so I did that... after already sending a new query. I still haven't nudged the full again. I might wait on that until I start sending out GB queries in a few weeks.

As for the research/comp, good lord, this book is slow-moving. There's been relatively little spooky stuff happening and all of the other drama / side-plots are seriously padding the story.

However, I suppose my expectations were different, too. I re-read the GR description and realize that technically it wasn't promising that kids TODAY were vanishing, just that the threat could vanish kids... and technically it hadn't been vanishing them, they were just drowning in a pond. (The exact verbiage is "The Caretaker is an evil ghost who lures unsuspecting kids into the neighborhood pond. . . and they don’t ever come out.") So far, exactly zero of the current children have been affected in any way, although the MC is just learning about the previous victims. At any rate, the threat is way too distant. And the supernatural events have been pretty thin. (Although one thing that might've added a bit of intrigue I semi-spoiled for myself via the acknowledgments page, which suggests a guardian jaguar..)

I mean, TECHNICALLY the story still has a threat that's been impacting children for decades, so that part still works. And I'm a bit desperate for comps, even if the number of GR ratings isn't huge (although it's alright for MG. In fact, I can't think of any recent MG horror that's had a lot of ratings, minus maybe something by an absurdly established author like R.L. Stine.)

Currently at 130 marked pages reviewed (GB, round 2) -- FINISHED (kinda)
Queried 5 agents so far this month. -- +4
Currently 131 pages into a research/comp (Angela Cervantes's MG horror The Cursed Moon)

 

[Esmae Tyler]

Day 4: Another scene revised. At this rate I might actually finish by the end of February.

 

[pdblake]

Day 4

1,138 words today and on the last chapter of the novel. Then I've got a long list of edits I need to make.

 

[k_leigh517]

Day 4
Only three edited chapters left to type up! Hoping to get that finished Friday.
One chapter tightened up today.
Got chapter two grammer checked and flowing well yesterday.

 

[Pedro Rivera]

Day 4: 361 words, 2 pages
WIP #1: 5,972 words, 22 pages
WIP #2: 11,551 words, 42 pages
Had a little time to write today.

 

[Nether]

Day 4 was some attempts to add descriptions, mild fixes, 7 queries, and 1 nudge (plus 3 rejections)

Not a terribly productive writing/editing day, although I sent out some queries (and spent an absurd amount of time trying to decide whether to query one agency, when I should've just looked at the agent)

For the writing/editing, I kinda tinkered a little during the early session. Then I again mostly wasted time in the late session, although right toward the end I started to make progress on the description for when the teacher is introduced. The only problem is it wasn't just a matter of adding a sentence or two, but instead I wound up moving some stuff around then reworking large swathes of the paragraph, etc.

So instead of adding a little to a paragraph, I chopped a portion of that off then added two paragraphs. Then I moved other stuff. And finally, I realized now I need to fix something a bit before that. And now I'm wondering whey the MC wasn't just waiting outside the classroom. But hey, I managed to fit in a ONE sentence physical description. The rest expands on her character a bit, although it probably wasn't necessary because it's already pretty clear she's unpleasant. Anyway, those changes went into the next day and I'll likely be still fixing them up later while thinking how much I prefer the older version.

On the agent front, I marked off a few CNRs. Have a bunch more to catch up on. Then the day's third rejection came in at 10:38pm, which I didn't notice until around 11:30 which was around when I was starting my late session (again, it keeps getting to a later start). Otherwise I might've been able to send out a new query there. As for the nudge, it was on a QM query from July. The really annoying part is this is an agent who I'd waited and waited and waited for her to open her agency. I might give it a month then possibly withdraw to query one of her associates.

As for the research/comp, it's finally starting to get good... and all it took was 180-190 pages. Some time before that, the story started to get more interesting. But, like I've mentioned, the story developments feel absurdly slow. Plus, I've kinda gotten whiplash with these characters doing 180s. And a lot of it isn't terribly consistent where a character will be ridiculously mad, do something a bit thoughtful, then go back to acting angry.

Queried 12 agents so far this month. -- +7
Currently 192 pages into a research/comp (Angela Cervantes's MG horror The Cursed Moon)

 

[pdblake]

Day 5

Just 428 words today, but got to the end of the novel. All read and edits done.

Now I need to print it out and read it again, except my printer is playing up. It's old and worn (it keeps thinking it's run out of paper when it hasn't, so you have to sit there pushing the button, which is extremely tedious when you're printing out 400 pages.) and on the way out, so I have a shiny new one coming tomorrow. Pity I have almost two years worth of ink for the old one (it's dirt cheap on ebay). Thankfully you can also get cheap extra large toners for this new laser printer.

I'll keep the old one for the canner/copier for now, and if I need anything in colour. The new one is mono. Hopefully it'll be a lot quicker.

 

[k_leigh517]

Day 5
Only had access to my phone today so got three chapters tightened up.

 

[Esmae Tyler]

Day 5: Didn't get much done today. No serious revisions. I opened my Scrivener doc and paged through my physical copy a couple of times. Made some notes about some stuff to add on a later pass. Listened to some podcasts about interiority. That totally counts as work, right?

 

[Pedro Rivera]

Day 5: 1,585 words, 5 pages
WIP #1: 5,972 words, 22 pages
WIP #2: 11,551 words, 42 pages
WIP #3: 1,585 words, 5 pages
Started a brand-new short story today. A combination of ideas all struck me at just the right time, and I could not stop writing. Loving it so far.

 

[Nether]

Day 5 was 21 marked pages reviewed, some minimal progress on an idea for something, 7 agents queried, and 1 nudge (plus 2 rejections)

Not a super-productive day writing/editing-wise, partly because I was tired during the early session (although technically earlier during that session, I was still working on fixing up that thing in GB). And then the evening was spent querying, mostly because the weekly QT email arrived absurdly late (although I'd queried some agents earlier).

Anyway, I finished up the description for the teacher (who doesn't appear in the first 20 pages anyway). Instead of moving onto doing something with two of the kids afterward, I later started to review LoLa's marks... and only made it through 3 pages because I was tired and decided to stop. Then I got through another 5 in the late evening (a last minute thing) and 13 during the late session. Although there are a lot of marks on some pages, they seem to be things I already resolved earlier.

And after thinking of a different direction for a MG fantasy idea, I had a similar enough idea that might preempt it. Specifically something that revolves around spellbooks (or more specifically books). Still very prelim. Thinking through it.

On the agent front, I had a query that was 1.25 years old now, so I just left it in the QM system and queried somebody else at the agency. (Bit iffy on that other agent, though... and the agency itself has a kinda odd issue atm where the site isn't working properly, although it's a very old agency.) I also queried another agent I was even more iffy on (mostly for lacking exp and being at an agency that's slowly starting to establish itself). The only notable decision was I went ahead and queried FJ to an AB agent after holding off for a better one to open (because it has a 1=all rule). Then the nudge was for an agent who's kept me waiting over 4 months now who previously got back to me in a month on previous queries.

As for the research/com, I finished reading Angela Cervantes's MG horror The Cursed Moon and... idk if I want to use it as a comp for GB. Or maybe I can use it as a third comp. Mostly because it's not that close to GB in terms of story, the writing isn't much of a match, and I didn't enjoy the book that much. The ending was also absurdly rushed. Oh, and the author really liked using “Just then,”. I probably could’ve started to count the uses by the end

Not sure what I'll read next. I might go with The Monster Tree (a potential HuHo comp), but I really need to find potential stuff for other manuscripts, including GB. The only problem is I don't have anything absurdly promising on the docket.

Currently at 21 marked pages reviewed (LoLa)
Queried 19 agents so far this month. -- +7
Currently 224 pages into a research/comp (Angela Cervantes's MG horror The Cursed Moon) -- FINISHED

Pity I have almost two years worth of ink for the old one (it's dirt cheap on ebay). Thankfully you can also get cheap extra large toners for this new laser printer.

How cheap are we talking? Because I've never printed a manuscript because it seemed kinda costly. (Granted, I prefer to review stuff on a phone anyway.)

 

[pdblake]

How cheap are we talking? Because I've never printed a manuscript because it seemed kinda costly. (Granted, I prefer to review stuff on a phone anyway.)

I usually get four of each colour and four blacks for about £10-£15. They last at least a year. The laser toner I've found is £13. I get the paper from Staples for iirc £13 for 2500 sheets.

Should say that the inkjet is an old HP all in one. The newer ones are much more expensive to run. The new laser is a Brother which I'm told aren't quite so greedy.

 

[Esmae Tyler]

Day 6: got through the scene I should've done yesterday. Not quite a total scrap and redo, but almost.

 

[Clovitide]

Day 5

Got to 54k on Prototech. Slowly getting 'er done! 4 queries sent for Humanity

Sent a query draft to the query hell forum and was not disappointed (other than in my self)

 

[pdblake]

Day 6

437 words today. Novel all printed. It took several hours on the old inkjet. Tried with the new laser and it took 12 minutes.

 

[Woollybear]

Checking in. I have the next chapter into a better rough shape. I also corrected (kind of) a time-issue where the year was both 1919 for world series reasons and 1921 for personal reasons. That patch is rough but can be polished up to work.

Word count is creeping up. Now at 110,600.

 

[k_leigh517]

Day 6
Got one chapter uploaded today (two to go!)
Tightened up another chapter
I feel like the end is getting closer! I did a little work on my query letter as well which was exciting. Start early and then got plenty of time to tweak it.

 

[Pedro Rivera]

Day 6: 3,063 words, 9 pages
WIP #1: 5,972 words, 22 pages
WIP #2: 11,551 words, 42 pages
WIP #3: 4,648 words, 14 pages
I simply cannot stop the words flowing out of me with this short story. There's no better feeling as a writer. I hope to finish the story tomorrow.

 

[Nether]

Day 6 was 25 marked pages reviewed (LoLa) and 7 agents queried (plus 5 rejections)

I held off with GB stuff today (where idk, doing that probably doesn't benefit me since the issues will still be there later). Instead, I made some progress with reviewing LoLa's marks, although not as much as I would've liked. Tiredness got in the way of the early session. I didn't have a lot of time in evening (although I was also querying). And then I got off to a late start during the late session... and was distracted by the fact a neighbor started snowblowing at 11:40 or 11:45 PM (which, to be fair, they have an absurdly steep driveway and needed to get down it).

On the agent front, I had 2 next-day rejections. One was from the agent I was absurdly iffy about and, having thought it (even after sending the initial query), I don't think I'll bother querying them because I don't have much faith in that agent. Of course, on the same day i got 2 rejections in under 24 hours, I also got a rejection on a query sent 176 days ago (that's almost 6 months). I probably should've withdrawn my query before then. Although, honestly, the agency's founder/CEO was also pretty bad where I finally withdrew my query after 11 months.

As for the research/comp, after some deliberation, I finally decided to read Daka Hermon’s MG horror Hide and Seeker. The book had been sporadically on my radar and, while at another library a while back, I glanced at the opening pages before deciding to not borrow it. (And iirc I might've seen it or another Daka Hermon novel at a thrift store and probably should've picked that up.). Of course, another big reason for my hesitation is the fact it came out in 2020, which even 2 years ago meant it was outside the 3-year window. However, after struggling to find comps, I've decided that MAYBE I'll need to reference something outside even the 5-year window from time-to-time.

More importantly, the book itself reads well. I feel like I might've written it off a bit too hastily after glancing at the opening page and the blurb because it builds suspense pretty quickly and there's some decent storytelling (although it also gets into a LOT of stuff about character backstories). The voice is pretty solid, although it took a little bit to get used to stuff like "shoulda" (which iirc is even used outside dialogue).

Currently at 46 marked pages reviewed (LoLa)
Queried 26 agents so far this month. -- +7
Currently 32 pages into a research/comp (Daka Hermon’s MG horror Hide and Seeker)

 

[pdblake]

Day 7

1,038 words today. Starting to think about a synopsis for the novel.

 

[Esmae Tyler]

Day 7: got through the next scene. 20 left, which is pretty tight for an end-of-month deadline, but as long as I can keep to a scene per day it should be okay.

 

[Woollybear]

Day 7. So, the ship on the sea chapter, 1921, is about 2400 words. It's getting there slowly. Amazing the speedbumps that pop up from the second draft, like I had dropped in Rudolph Valentino's name way back in second draft days, and he's been nowhere in sight in the preceding 60000 words, so it was like, 'WTH? Where did he come from?' (and now he's gone). That's an easy edit, of course. The idea is to make the whole thing, all 100K+ words, work better. I combined two chapters to make this new one. I changed a character trait so that they could help drive things more, I tried to keep the opera theme on my protagonist's mind, some research into things like When did Enrico Caruso die? (answer: less than a month before this ship departed NY), things like whether steamships had badminton courts (I still don't know the answer, but I changed it to table tennis and I need to make sure it was called table tennis and not ping-pong in 1921), (aha: a quick search of the newspapers says no, it was called ping-pong), what the dining salons would have looked like, and so on.

Anyway, the chapter reads a bit better with each day. So, progress.

 

[k_leigh517]

Day 7
All pen and paper edits have now been uploaded onto the computer!
Two more chapters tightened up. Only five more to go there.
Then it's nearly ready!

 

[Pedro Rivera]

Day 7: 1,640 words, 5 pages
WIP #1: 5,972 words, 22 pages
WIP #2: 11,551 words, 42 pages
WIP #3: 6,288 words, 19 pages, COMPLETED
Finished my 3rd ever short story today! Spent the last three days writing it and absolutely loved it.

 

[Nether]

Day 7 was 33 marked pages reviewed (LoLa), 3 agents queried, and 1 nudge (plus 1 rejection and 1 kinda-rejection where the agent just wants everybody to resub when she re-opens)

I kinda lost my early session when a nap turned into a sleep, but I got enough done in the afternoon/evening to make up for it and the fact I started the late session so late that was short, too.

Right now, I'm kinda doing more than reviewing the marks since I started reading the pages again then checking the marks as I go along or looking at them after the page, partly because some pages didn't have marks (which happens) and then just because I wanted to read the story... again. (Because apparently the quick-read and the mark-ups wasn't enough.)

And that additional reading once again has me thinking about the fact I kinda tease a romantic subplot, but don't really do anything with it (although the characters wind up being friends by the end, so there's that). I should probably hint at that less. But I guess having a fake dating trope would imply it regardless (and sure, I could remove that, but it drives some of the conflict, it's used as a distraction, and it plays into a few humorous scenes). Technically, I guess I could explore it if there winds up being a sequel/series, but I don't really have anything planned for that (which, honestly, is another problem with LoLa since sequel/series potential makes books is more appealing to agents/editors).

On the agent front, I sent out a query where I misspelled the agent's name, so that's a whoops (although my previous queries to her were CNRs and, honestly, she's not super-successful anyway). I also got a rejection 120 days, which I was thinking was a lot before realizing it's just 4 months and it's nowhere near as big as yesterday's 176-day response. I mean, how could you top that?

...well, that slow response was topped, literally one day after getting it, by an agent who sent this really weird boilerplate-ish message 323 days after I queried. Basically, the message noted that she'd closed to queries for almost a year and implied that everybody was getting a blanket rejection, but we were free to resubmit those (presumably unread) projects if they meet her new wishlist, which she'll post in March. So basically I'm guessing she got behind on queries then decided it wasn't worth following on what she had. Although I guess it's practical, that's still a kinda WTF move.

However, I realized that's still not the longest non-CNR I've had because I got a response 333 days after the fact.

As for the research/comp, Hide and Seeker continues to be good. If I was MG-aged, I imagine I'd be spooked. I also like the way the author integrates setting descriptions into the story. Although I'm guessing it's partly to either set something up or because it introduces something that should seem strange but, in context, isn't as conspicuous. The only kinda annoyance is I keep thinking that if this book was YA, it'd be a great comp for MN. As it is, the novel might only somewhat work for GB.

Currently at 79 marked pages reviewed (LoLa)
Queried 29 agents so far this month. -- +3
Currently 77 pages into a research/comp (Daka Hermon’s MG horror Hide and Seeker)