Update and Apology
>> Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sorry to everyone who might have wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't but I wouldn't blame you for thinking that because I have been twenty shades of overbusy the past week or so.
First I was disheartened with that feeling that most if not all unpublished wannabe writers gets at some point. You know the one, where you wonder if you're one of the clueless know-nothings who think they really can write but are just deluding themselves horribly.
I'm not saying I'm necessarily entirely cured, but I have reached a compromise ont he one novel and moved on. Slowly, since it involved an appreciable rewrite and sucked away my rather impressive momentum.
However, last week, on Friday, a friend pointed me to a romance editor (publishing house) who was critiquing "pitches" and suggested (since it's well established my marketing skills are pathetic) I try pitching something. Since my third novel, the one I wrote in a white heat last year, is the closest thing I have to a romance, I pitched it. The editor found it sufficiently intriguing that she asked for a synopsis and the entire book. Which means that the novel I'd had in a surprisingly-good-for-a-first draft form needs to be clean and polished, um, now. The editor has vowed to address all the pitches by 9/3, so I'm setting that as my deadline.
So, this weekend, I needed to work twenty-four hours of overtime (from home), handle a teenage birthday/sleepover AND a seven year old birthday AND finish the chapter I was working on for Cat's Paw and COMPLETELY do a first level polish edit on Tarot Queen.
For the record, I did all that - and that's with my husband conking out at six during the teenage-a-thon (which might be why I got so much editing done after I was through with day job work).
But, that's also why I haven't been visiting commenting on blogs and writing any myself. And, since I still need to do my Tarot Queen run through with Lee this week (and I have a few more extra hours at work to put in), it will be a bit longer before I'm at my blogging best.
Try to bear with me.
Congratulations,
It's the toughest and most rewarding thing to abosulutlely and positively do a rewrite in way too little time. Trust me though some of your best work comes out when you're scrambling to make that final bit make sense when you've had two hours sleep the night before and need to elaborate on something while simultaneously cutting it to a third of its original length.
This is the time that you really need to trust yourself and I know you can do it.
Agreed.
As I know, half of writing is attitude. I think I've gotten it back, though, and I'm taking an extra day off next week so I can devote my weekend to the new novel I'm half done.
But, that's good news! You sounded so down in your last post, I figured you'd been turned down. Mazel Tov.
It's an opportunity, nothing more. And I worry a bit because Tarot Queen is a rather unique love story. I don't follow "the rules," but, even reworking my draft, I changed it less than 50 words total (in length). I still love it.
If it doesn't work, well that's OK. I'm grateful for the chance.
You go, girl! (So proud of you! *wipes away tear*)
I thought about e-mailing you yesterday, to see if you were alive. I'm hoping to work more on novel #1 today. Give your daughter and son happy birthday hugs from Auntie Shakespeare.
Awesome... good luck.
I have faith it will happen.
It's ok, real life is always first, always, you are taking action, as long as you move forward with your empire building efforts, all will be epic.