I have applications out with a few local companies for jobs in copywriting. I believe this is a field I might do well in and I intend to keep applying until I find someone willing to hire a promising recent graduate in an entry-level position. Once I've got my foot in the door, it's a potentially lucrative field where writing only a few words can become a serious career. I certainly believe that someone with my versatility would have no trouble adapting to the expected style, length, and content.
This isn't to say I intend to give up on novel-length work; far from it!
Currently, work on "The Linen Butterfly" has paused temporarily but will resume.
Right now I'm focusing my momentum on "District Line" which is progressing at a slow but steady pace of adding about 500 words per night and making small but important ad hoc edits throughout including short scenes added to the beginning of each chapter so that the novel is now two stories woven together.
The edits are nearing the end of their ad hoc phase as I begin moving slowly into a more methodical phase. As of last night I have fixed the chapter numbering discrepancy and made a tentative table of contents for each of the new scenes at the start of the chapters to get a feel for how these are going to flow and which chapters still need one. Once I'm finished adding these scenes, the rest of the work will be a stylistic revision working from beginning to end.
Estimated final word count will be between 65,000 and 70,000 words, or slightly longer than "The Vimana Incident." Those who read the book in its original form, as a much more skeletal manuscript called "One Could Do Better," will still recognize the story as largely the same in many important details, but the short scenes at the beginnings of the chapters will add a layer of depth and meaning that the story never had before.
While I don't think I'll be able to polish this into a contemporary epic on the quality of Vonnegut or Pynchon, I hope to at least produce something good enough to get mainstream publication.
