A bit of progress this weekend, but it was busy, so not a lot. I'm thinking about giving beta exchange person 2 a break, it's the same points over and over again (too much telling, reads like an outline instead of a story, not enough description of setting and positioning of characters) so I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting her time. Anyhow, it's helped me look for certain things. My wife has some starkly different opinions and dings me for different things. Then there's other feedback as well. Synthesizing feedback will be interesting.
I'm going to be cutting and smoothing for awhile once I've got this first cut and change finished. I need to know what my word count will be to decide which ideas to use for the other couple of cuts I want to do.
Who has two thumbs and just got asked to "commit an act of monthly journalism."?
This gal.
I've gotta say I love the way my name looks next to "and I'm a reporter for..."
Although, much like Simon, I feel like a reporter whether I'm reporting or not.
Maybe there's a line you cross once you ever say "sexy" about things like football stadiums and public utilities...journalism-sexy being more about capturing the imagination than wet panties.
Which one?
Although I probably shouldn't brag till my source gets back to me. Which she hasn't, which gives me plenty of ways to continue being the Johnny Drama of the media world.
I just sent the final (I hope!) version of the proposal for Gothic Charm School 2 to my agent. Everyone cross your fingers that (1) my agent doesn't think I need to do any more tweaks, and (2) that HarperCollins says
"Why yes, let's publish another book by that nice Goth girl".
Good luck Jilli!
I'm about to close up the hole left by my first major plot cut. Good bye Park District, Church Archives, Diane, Jon, and the collapsing tunnel.
Then I'm taking a break from new content and working on cutting out wordiness, repetition, and unnecessary narrative.
I know this thread is for original writing, but I'm so happy to be writing anything at all at the moment that I'm going to share my cautious glee at having a fic open and actually adding to it.
I wish I understood my brain. But at least it's poking its writing nose out of its lair again. Next step, learning how to lead it in the direction I want it to go rather than learning how to stay on and make something useful out of its ramblings. I'm thrilled that it's starting to ramble, but I'd really like to ramble in a specific direction.
I hope your writing nose leads you well.
