I just sent off draft seven of my novel to another reviewer. I very much value this person's judgment because of her experience editing books for the Oxford University Press and that she helped me revise and edit my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. I spent the last two and a half months working on this draft, looking for repetition, places where I told the story rather than showed it, and rewriting in response to some earlier review comments. As a result I cut out almost five thousand words. It's now down to 85, 485 words. It's still a little heavy for a novel, but in the right range. I've asked this reviewer to especially assess the content - are the story and its characters worth even pursuing at this point. My problem is the more I read and work on this material these days, the less confident I get. I said I don't need her to edit, except for giving me possible suggestions on where to delete/add stuff. After I sent my manuscript off to my reviewer today, my … [Read more...]
Fresh eyes are important to our writing process
After a three-week break, I went back to my consulting job on August 3 and worked 17 days straight. That is until today when I got a little mini vacation - a few hours off to go out to lunch and get a much-needed manicure and pedicure. Tomorrow I'll be back on the job for another 20 days or so until the work is finished. I can't tell how much I look forward to going back to my writing life and playing with all my writing friends out on the networks. I really apologize for being such a dropout these last few weeks and months. Once back I'll probably get so involved again, you all will want me to get a work gig again. However, while I've been working I looked at how similar writing a proposal is to writing a book. Right now a review team is looking at our product. That's what I hope most of us do with our draft books: ask a team of fellow authors to review our book and give us comments pick our team carefully for their expertise give them a list of specific things to look … [Read more...]
