I used to post all the time about writing but now I hardly ever do. There’s a two-part reason for that. One part is the obvious…I’m not getting nearly as much time to write as I used to. Some of that is my fault, and some of it is out of my hands. The other part is that the writing I am doing is sort of in an infinite loop of sorts. I’m just redoing and fixing and tweaking and tightening the beginning over and over and over again.
Sure, the advice to move on and come back to it is good, but eventually, I have to really iron this out, and–believe it or not–I’ve still not sent those first three chapters to the agent who asked for them back at the beginning of February. That seems just a tad unprofessional to me, but again, I have an excuse: I thought those chapters were ready to go. And maybe they were. But then I got a critique partner, and she read those first three chapters.
Like a good critique partner, she suggested some changes. And so I’ve been trying to make them. Not that I trust her implicitly after only a handful of emails, but what she’s saying makes a lot of sense, and judging by what I’ve heard from contest judges and others, it’s probably what I need to do. Not everyone is an easy reader like me…I’ve found most authors/agents/editors to be pretty impatient when they read. Sort of like toddlers…they want everything and they want it right now…in the first chapter…the first page…even the first line. That’s pretty darn hard to do, and it doesn’t fit everyone’s voice. So I’m working on it: trying to keep my voice and hook the reader.
I’ll blog more about writing when I have something interesting to say. Until then, assume I’m still working on those first three chapters.
