To anyone reading my blog with any frequency, I may appear just doggone flighty. I keep coming up with reasons and ways to change my manuscript that, by anyone else's standards, should be done by now. For instance, yesterday I happened to glance over the scoresheets for an RWA chapter-sponsored contest. You know, just to see how my manuscript MIGHT measure up if I were to be so bold as to enter another one. What I found was that I'm not actually making my heroine's goal very clear. Besides that, her inner conflict isn't obvious in the first, probably 30-40 pages. So, back I go.
Add to that the fact that I keep reading these short, tightly written books that I really love. I keep thinking, 'I want to do that!'. I'm more of a rambler, with side commentary, anecdotes, long descriptions, you name it. And I think that while that sort of style lends itself to historicals, it doesn't seem all that common in contemporary novels today.
I should start counting the number of drafts chapter one has sustained...and there's no end in sight.
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Basic Facts
- Alyssa Goodnight
- I have a bit of a crush on Jane Austen. Enough of one that my humorous women's fiction novel features her as a character--kinda, sorta. I'm repped by Rebecca Strauss of McIntosh & Otis and AUSTEN-TATIOUS will be published by Kensington Books in Feb 2012. I'll keep you posted.
(fyi...I self-published my first book, a Regency historical entitled UNLADYLIKE PURSUITS, in case you were curious)
This blog runs the gamut from alpacas to Zooey Deschanel. So stick around.
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3 comments:
The good thing is that at the end of the day, the reader doesn't know how many drafts you've written just want they hold in their hands - so long as that shines!
Part of my trouble is that people keep asking me when the book is going to be finished. I'm actually a little embarrassed to have to keep saying that no, it's still not ready. Not even a full first draft is done. Sure I have a lot of pages, but they need to be scaled back, and I need to tack on an ending.
Maybe I should set a goal...but then I'd have to meet it.
Amanda, you're so right. Everyone of us does it differently. And it's pointless comparing ourselves with others.
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