My scheduled guest, Lindsay Ashford, was unable to visit today. My apologies. We'll catch up with her later.
I've only gotten serious about my writing the last few of
years. Don’t get me wrong, I've been a writer most of my business life and have written numerous articles for newspapers, industry styled periodicals, radio copy, and developed seminars. And while I've told stories all my life, written
down many of them, it’s only been a recent thing for me to consider fulfilling a dream of writing novels and having them published.
I have several friends who are authors and who have been a
big encouragement to me. They've taken an interest in my writing and try to
help me improve. One asked me to give a brief blurb about one of my stories.
I’m thinking, brief? You see, me and brief—especially in fiction, we have problems and we’re not
exactly close friends. I thought, hey, I could do this. After all, I wrote
several 90,000-word books so how hard can it be? I hunkered down and got to it.
Ahem, need I say it was in need of a major blood transfusion when I
got it back? Then she added the word “concise”, sigh…I thought two pages was
concise. She then gave me a helpful clue; think of the back cover of a book.
Two days and twelve drafts later I hand her the blurb.
Her response?
Sia, just how big do you think a book cover is?
Oh-oh.
Oh-oh.
The next day and
we won’t mention the draft count, I handed it back to her. Good word count,
however…then came all this stuff about character goal, motivation, conflict,
word choices, and yeah, it was still bleeding to death.
My friend is tough and has pushed me to be the best I can be
and not to give up. She also thinks one should always practice pitches—who knows when you might meet an acquiring editor? I have a lot of respect for her. So,
you know whom I went to when I was preparing a 50-word pitch for an editor.
This time it only took me one day and four drafts—I had been practicing. I got
it back, “close but not quite.”
I growled—hey it impressed my dog. I went for a walk, did the dishes, polished my nails and sat down, determined to get this thing right.
I growled—hey it impressed my dog. I went for a walk, did the dishes, polished my nails and sat down, determined to get this thing right.
My final draft?
Now, if an editor does more then just read the manuscript and says thanks but no thanks?
I’ll tell you what it feels like to win a lottery.
I’ll tell you what it feels like to win a lottery.