It seems that all other Writer's Market subscribers know what subject to blog about, or have the time to blog about anything at all. When I'm not working at my day job, or when I'm not writing, what I do for fun includes watching a good movie or reading a good book, or checking for updates on my usual websites. I just hardly ever feel the drive to do much social networking like most people, and it took me a few weeks to remind myself to post something and actually get to it, and this is only my second one since I started.

But I always make sure I have time to write. I prefer the mornings when they're free, or early in the evening, try to squeeze in what I can. I already sent e-queries to over ten agents at once a while ago, and I already received rejections from half of them in a short amount of time. I meanwhile distract myself by working on my next book.

In fact, the one I'm trying to send and the one I'm working on now were both books that I first came up with almost ten years ago, and had started working on simultaneously right when I left high school. I couldn't have gotten them done sooner due to a lot of things in my life, such as college and getting a job. By the time I was done with both rough drafts, I finally put all my focus on the first book and tried polishing it the best I could on my own. I hadn't touched my second book for around seven years until now.

That can of course bring up the question; would the books I conceptualized and started working on almost a decade ago still stand today, when and if I ever do get them published? Anyone would say that the trick is to make sure the stories are timeless in some way. That's easy enough with my first book. On the surface it's an urban fantasy adventure about a girl and her cousins trying to save the world from people turning into monsters, but under the surface it centers around themes of communication, identity, and the true self vs. the presented self. It helps to have themes and issues that are universal, and to not comment about specifics of our current world, such as how things are in the Obama Administration. There is a third  book that I plan on doing in the near future, which is another fantasy adventure that involves zombies (for older readers). This one contains themes of religious fundamentalism and gun fanaticism, issues and subjects that I don't believe will ever be dated.

The second book I've mentioned I'm working on is a little trickier; imagine a world where all the world's animals have gone extinct, since all forests and environmental landscapes were wiped out for development or other reasons, and the planet is in a fragile state because all natural resources were drained until there was nothing left, and only then did people force themselves to rely on artificial resources. This story idea originated from back during the Bush Administration, the longest presidency I ever witnessed in my life. This was a time when people were encouraged in general to not care about the environment, that draining all natural resources was a priority, and global warming was a myth. Now that we have a new president, perspectives have changed almost completely, which puts my second book in an awkward spot. This is an epic sci-fi/fantasy novel that is supposed to take place in the future, but today's times just won't reflect it. So what could be the solution? In the book a character has a philosophical belief of parallel worlds, so I figure rather than have this story take place 'in the future,' it takes place 'in an alternative future.' The characters discuss that in a parallel world Earth may not be in such a dire state, that the animals continue to thrive and coexist with the human race.

It's the best I can come up with, because it's a story that I believe in and that I'm putting my heart and soul into. Does anyone else every worry of their stories or the content within being dated, or figure how to work around it?

This was a pretty long blog, but it'll probably be ages again before I get around to writing another one.