Words About Writing

Yesterday was exhilarating. After a day or two focused on tracking down readers (two noes, two yesses, one ghosting, and finally a third yes) I started looking into querying. I re-watched an old Nanowrimo video about the process, then started on my own process. So far I have: 1. Created a spreadsheet to track agents, letters sent, responses received. 2. Composed a draft of a generic query letter. This will be vastly changed: personalized to each agent, as well as updated after I receive reader feedback.  I've asked my readers for feedback "by October" so I have a little over a month to research agents and work on my elevator pitch to go in the query letter itself.   I'm also debating about a possible 4th reader. Three readers is my minimum, and I'd like to be over my minimum, but not if it's the wrong reader. So there's something to think about there. I honestly can't believe I'm here. And I'm actually doing it! Doing the legwork to get it don...

Done! As of yesterday, I finished this edit. It felt weird to step away from the novel with that idea. This is, officially, my last draft. Next is lining up my readers and sending it off to them to get their feedback. I didn't want to slacken off - I'd been so good at getting in and working on it every day - that right away today I made it my task to send out the messages verifying readers. I had a growing list of possible beta-readers, collected from people I'd met in person and on line, names of readers from the first time around, and a couple old friends who were interested. They say not to use people who know you well because they are likely to be less critical, but these two are significant for different reasons and I didn't want to leave them out. This morning, I sat down and sent out 5 messages to 5 people who had expressed at some point an interest in doing this. As of tonight I've heard back from three of them. Two definite yesses and one with questions bef...

Yes! I'm nearing the end of the WIP my reader had helped point out trouble spots. No! One trouble spot requires a re-write of a scene. Or maybe a deletion. I'm trying to fix the scene, tighten it up, make it fit, but it's hard to so quickly switch gears from editing to writing. This is taking some time. I tried adjusting within the scene, and it was too much the same. So I tried again, deleting big chunks before getting to work. Still off. So I tried writing a completely different scene to help me come up with a better middle. And that's where I am. I'm thinking it will just be truncated a lot. I'm not happy with it, but I understand why the reader was unhappy with it to begin with, and I agree with their logic. I can't stop now, so near the end! Back into the fray I go!