I’ve mentioned that I’ve re-re-re-rewritten my opening pages. And I think I’ve tightened them, given a better feel for the heroine, her conflict, goals, etc. I was feeling pretty happy with it. So last night, I ask my husband to read it.

He doesn’t like it.

In fact, I think I got an ‘Eh…’ He likes the original better where I sort of start mid phone call and break up the phone call with internal refelction and mini-flashbacks. I thought that seemed kinda choppy and excessive on the internal reflection. (I’ve also heard that from contest judges and my own personal family readers.)

So, I sent those first three pages to my sister and mother to see what they think.

There is no dialogue in those first three pages. Is that really a problem? I hear all this stuff in writing workshops, online, from contest judges, etc. and then almost everything I read breaks all the rules. By nature, I’m a rule follower, but I just can’t seem to do it so well with my writing.

I’m thinking the rule is this: If they like your story, they’ll forgive you anything.

I read via a couple of blogs today that the Harlequin Bombshell Line is closing. Normally such news wouldn’t phase me at all as I don’t really keep up with the different lines, but a chapter mate of mine, Sandra K. Moore, writes for Bombshell. And from what I understand, she rocks! I met her after her debut novel Orchid Hunter was released, so I haven’t read it. I do however, have her current release Dead Reckoning on my TBR stack. I can’t help reading the first few pages of books I buy (even if I’m in the middle of reading two other books), so I did the same with DR. So far, so good. I’m excited to read more. I just have all these library books breathing down my neck… Anyway, Sandra is a serious, professional writer, and her books have garnered great reviews. I know she’ll find another publishing home. I hope it’s as quick as she wants.

I’m not going to get to do any writing today. My mother-in-law was here all day, and I have a chapter meeting (and a pre-meeting chapter board meeting tonight) that will eat up the rest of the evening. It’s my husband’s birthday today, and I’m deserting him for RWA! Anyway, I did write a little yesterday, keeping yesterday’s blog post about tighter writing in mind. It felt completely different. Normally I just write. Ideas come to me, the plot plays out as my fingers trip over the keyboard, things happen that I’m not expecting. And I end up with these big long chapters that probably have more verbage than most people want to see. Maybe the market is different now, but I remember reading long, wordy books–and really liking them. Now people what the story quick and efficient. And while I like that, I also miss the lingering.

Anyway, I digress. I was trying to get at the fact that while I was writing my umpteeth intro, I had an overview in my mind–I was conscious of theme, plot, character arc–all of it, and I was trying to tighten my writing to incorporate all of it. Is that how normal people write? This is a new thing for me, and I’m not sure I can sustain it for the re-write of an entire novel.

To anyone reading my blog with any frequency, I may appear just doggone flighty. I keep coming up with reasons and ways to change my manuscript that, by anyone else’s standards, should be done by now. For instance, yesterday I happened to glance over the scoresheets for an RWA chapter-sponsored contest. You know, just to see how my manuscript MIGHT measure up if I were to be so bold as to enter another one. What I found was that I’m not actually making my heroine’s goal very clear. Besides that, her inner conflict isn’t obvious in the first, probably 30-40 pages. So, back I go.

Add to that the fact that I keep reading these short, tightly written books that I really love. I keep thinking, ‘I want to do that!’. I’m more of a rambler, with side commentary, anecdotes, long descriptions, you name it. And I think that while that sort of style lends itself to historicals, it doesn’t seem all that common in contemporary novels today.

I should start counting the number of drafts chapter one has sustained…and there’s no end in sight.