Posts Tagged ‘Check-in’
After last night’s good news on my contest final, I got more excellent news this afternoon.
One of my writer friends had asked to read “Beauty and the Ballplayer.” She’s read a couple of my other manuscripts (“Blind Date Bride” and “Operation Snag Mike Brad”). She’s always busy, though, as a grandma of I don’t know how many … so I didn’t expect fast feedback.
Boy, was I surprised. She called today and said she read the whole thing in one day.
That in itself is a great sign … and she also said she loved pretty much everything about it. (Another excellent sign.)
She does, however, take issue with my poor hero, who refers to his — ahem — male part using a word that begins with “c.” I figured he’s a guy, and that’s what he’d be likely to think of it as, when he’s thinking of it (which is often). Besides, I already used my favorite name, “Mr. Happy” in Kari and Damien’s story. Two different heroes can’t have the same … er … pet name for their anatomy.
Pat steadfastly maintains Matt would not use such a crude word … so she made up a list of alternatives. We’re getting together Tuesday morning to go over them. I can’t wait.
… Ah, the life of a romance writer! Where else can you have a breakfast meeting to discuss the male anatomy?
P.S. Now that my creative juices are flowing, I’m thinking I might lobby Pat for something like “Li’l Slugger.” It’s a little more creative than the C-word — and it fits. Matt is a baseball player, you know. 😉
I’ve been so busy writing on Beth and Cody’s story and thinking of a new title for Bree and Mike’s that I haven’t done any editing on my Golden Heart entries.
What is that about? I need to get busy … that deadline is going to be here before I know it.
Unlike the crew from “Saturday Night Live,” I don’t have a lot to report: I’ve been reading/editing most of the weekend.
That means I’ve done no new writing … and I’m waffling about entering a third MS into the Golden Heart. A couple of nights ago, I started to wonder if I should enter Bree & Mike’s story. (I reread it, and I still think it’s pretty good. I LOVE Mike James. Visually, he’s beautiful and he’s interesting on the page — sordid past he keeps to himself, potentially questionable morals.)
Right now I’m leaning toward not, though. It’d be in the same category with Meg & Matt, the story I think is stronger … It had better be, since I’ve been honing my craft between the two. Of course, a lot of what I really like about Bree & Mike’s story is the stuff I went back and added in this spring, when I was expanding it to the proper length. (It started out at about 38,000 words.)
Besides, I’d have to write a synopsis AND come up with a better title. The frontrunner, thanks to my Facebook clan, is “She’s Snow Virgin” … but I don’t think even that works. (Better than “To Catch a Wife,” though, which is what I’ve been calling it.)
Does SNL even do “Weekend Update” anymore? Working most Saturday nights, I haven’t had a chance to watch in years.
I wrote this post for the Editor’s Note in the Sept./Oct. issue of the NARWA newsletter, High Country Highlights. However, I liked it too much not to share it here on the blog, too.
Since I’m trying to get in edit-mode for the Golden Heart, the subject is dear to me right now. Here goes:
When it comes to progress on my writing, July and August have pretty much been a wash for me.
A vacation from the day job ended up being a break from writing, too. This happened despite the fact that I toted a big binder full of “Blind Date Bride” with me.
It never even left the (very heavy) suitcase. And the few times I found myself with computer time, I spent it catching up on my blog reading (and writing) … and, of course, Twitter.
How did the world ever get along without new tweets to read every few minutes?
At the risk of sounding like a fogey, I’ll say we were all probably a lot less distracted.
But change is good, so we all need to embrace the technology of the future. Right?
Right.
I’ve recently discovered that I don’t like change all that much. Oh, I suppose I should have realized this about myself years ago, when I balked every time the school cafeteria tried to serve me waffles and sausage for lunch … or when the thought of changing the way we do something at work makes me grumble both loudly and repeatedly.
Well, I finally got it: Given a choice, I prefer things to stay the way they are. Even when things aren’t quite perfect, I’d rather not alter them. Better the devil you know …
I suspect my aversion to change is also why I have trouble editing my writing.
Of course I know there’s room for improvement, because there’s always room for improvement.
But where I have no trouble thinking of ways to change someone else’s prose, I often come up empty when I try to improve my own. Sure, I might tweak a word here and there, but I rarely do a complete overhaul.
I like to think it’s because I spend enough time crafting sentences the first time that they already sing.
In reality, I’m probably just being a little lazy and a lot resistant to change.
I’ll say it again, mostly to convince myself: Change is good.
As I delve into preparing for the 2011 Golden Heart contest, I’m going to keep that in mind.
Do you have any fail-safe, foolproof editing tips to share?
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