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So since the phone call that allowed me to write the post I have an agent! and made me feel:
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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
