Wow. It’s been a lo--ng time. Since my last post, I carefully thought about my lovely commenters’ thoughts and decided to go with my gut and re-write my ms in the first person. It’s flowing much better than it ever did before, and now it’s even easier for me to see where it needs to be edited. Weird.
On another revelationary thing, I also applied (via Kidlit’s comments) for writers to exchange pages with. I met two lovely ladies with whom I am swapping and critiquing. It’s a great motivation to write to deadline too. I promised to have my second chapter to them by tomorrow and although I’m hopelessly behind, I’m hoping to meet the target. Oh, the optimism!
But the great part - as I’m sure you more experienced writers know - is getting non-relatives to read and comment on my work. They’ve noticed things I wouldn’t have in a million years. So my first chapter is sharper than it ever was. And I fully anticipate that when I re-submit my chapters to them after the first time around, their suggestions will make it tighter and tighter. I hope I’m affording my critique partners the same good fortune too :)
In between my various writing revelations – I have had one broken ankle, one sprained ankle, two sets of volcano-stranded families staying and my regular day-job to contend with. Sometimes it’s a wonder I can do anything… let alone stand on my own two feet without falling over something - which clearly I can't do right now.
2 comments:
How do you get crit partners? I don't get where people apply for them.
Anyways, rewriting a MS because theres something large like changing from third to first, or changing tense is.... gritty work, to say the least. But I find it seems to make the work infinetely better. I'm noticing this with my own work as well.
Good luck!
Melissa - so sorry for taking so much time in replying. If you look at the archives of Kidlit.com, Mary ran a post for critique partners to find each other! I have to say I'm a novice though - if you don't write kidlit, I'm not sure where you'd go. AbsoluteWrite has forums where I'm sure you would find someone to help. Good luck with yours :)
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