Saturday 22 October 2011

Editing with the help of fondant fancies

a little bit like this


So since the phone call that allowed me to write the post I have an agent! and made me feel:
  
and then a bit like this
 
I've been mostly engaged in some serious face time with this...







...making some fairly big revisions to my ms. As in, writing out one POV and changing the storyline type of fairly big.

And it's making my ms a more focused story that's just all-round betterer and something I really should have thought of myself in the first place. I can't believe how much I've learned in just the couple of weeks I've been re-working the story. Something Julia (my agent. Yes, you might get tired of me saying that. No, I'm not going to stop :D ) said really resonated with me. Actually, everything she said about my story resonated with me and let me know I'd done the right thing in sending my query to her, but I'm talking about one thing in particular. She said 'a story is a very simple thing'.

My story was not a very simple thing. It was a thing that twisted in the middle and in the end it had become something other than what I set out to do. In the second half, I'd let another idea take over. In straightening this story out, I've been able to see more clearly what I need to do with novel #3 (which is fizzing and unfolding in my head at the moment.)

This weekend I'm taking a break from editing and revising. I was supposed to be taking a mini-break from writing anything, but that proved to be a little difficult. This morning I made a document called Tunguska, typed Chapter 1 on it (I love doing that - it's made me grin like a fool all three times I've done it) and wrote the first paragraph. Now I need to think through a bit more of the story and write a query-like letter. I know I won't be using it as a query, but I found it really useful with novel #2 to write it before hand, even though the book did change in the end. Once I've got the main storyline focused, I'm going make a proper start on it - after this round of the edits on #2 are finished. Excited!

I love learning new things, especially about writing and about myself and what I can make words do. Tell me about something you've learned about yourself or your writing in the last few weeks. It could be something someone else has told you, or it could be something you realised on your own. Like how the consumption of fondant fancies has a direct corollary to the quality and quantity of your word count.

Don't believe me? Try it :D



10 comments:

  1. It's me, Christine Daae (still can only post as anonymous on this website)! It's been so exciting to watch you take this journey. You're extremely talented and we all knew it was a matter of time before some smart agent snapped you up. I wish you all the best and I am thrilled for you! I'm not sure what a fondant fancy is...but, it works with candy corn, too. :)

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  2. Wow, you've started on novel number 3 already. You're a firecracker.
    What have I learnt recently? I stall, and stall, and then stall some more. :-)
    Good on you, Ruth. I can't wait to read the next novel.

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  3. Thanks K :D They're small cakes covered in icing that HAVE (it's the law over here as far as I know) to be consumed in three's.

    I only wrote the first paragraph Amaleen, but I always used to do the same with essays at college. Just feels good to have made a start, however small. Plus I made a right old hash of the beginning of novel #1 so I don't intend to make that mistake again.

    Oh, and STOP STALLING! That's an order :)

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  4. Im with Amaleen - stall stall stall. I like to pretend it is because it "has to be perfect", but I know better.

    Good on you for getting a start on novel #3

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  5. Well then you two ladies had better learn something new right now! How about this: You both write well enough that you shouldn't let anything else get in the way.

    Quit stalling, start writing. I'm expecting great things from both of you come the end of NaNo!

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  6. I've learned that I have people lurking in the corner reading my stuff even if they don't comment. The fact that they keep coming back has really given me an incentive to quit stalling and get my query out to agents.

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  7. That's great ED. I have lurkers too. It never fails to put a big smile on my face thinking that someone is reading our work just because they enjoy it.

    *sneaks off to read ED's query*

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  8. How great!!! Just popping in to say hi and thanks for entering my give away. Great to visit again. Donna

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  9. Good luck revising!
    And can I just say I LOVE that pic of the cat there?? :D

    I learned that I can't write if I don't have cookies beside me. Too bad the crumbs sometimes fall in the keyboard and then the keys won't work properly! lol

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  10. Thanks Donna :)

    Monica, you leave crumbs? Tut, tut, that's a waste of good cookie :P

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