Actually the last six weeks have been somewhat of a blur. For a while my priorities were all skew-whiff, but I think I am getting back on track now. I won't go into details - I'll save that for a short story or two... haha!
I have been making up for lost time, that's for sure. I'm exhausted! I have been enjoying great interaction with my online writing group, who have been instrumental in giving me a gentle push in the direction of 'forwards'.
Sharing 'works in progress', editing and offering and gaining feedback has been a really helpful and educational process; and fabulous practise at proofreading too. It's amazing what you can pick up from others, I feel I have learnt so much over the last week, all of which I hope, will have a positive impact on my own work.
I have read, re-read, edited, edited, edited and edited and read the first 50 pages of my novel - so much so, that I think I now know it word for word. Why? Because I have submitted it - to an actual publisher.
I know - but I had nothing to lose. It was an open submission so I may as well go for it. Who cares about rejection?
As well as the constant manuscript re-writes, I have been writing short stories for my new collection. A few months ago I informed Twitterland that I would be publishing it by the end of June. Thus, having stated this, I felt I had to actually deliver. Hopefully, after - guess what? - re-reads and editing - it will be up on Amazon before Monday. Fingers crossed.
Once it's up, I will be going back to novel writing.
Such fun!
I know a few writers who belong to writing groups (of the physical, meet-up kind) and find them invaluable, I wonder how many belong to an online group? I would love to hear from you about your experiences. Thanks for reading :)
It sounds as if you've had a very busy week so no wonder you are exhausted, Samantha. Well done for submitting to a publisher and good luck for achieving the deadline for your short story collection.
ReplyDeleteI belong to an on-line group called Write-critical and like you find the help and support invaluable. :-)
Thank you Jan, short story collection - done! Yay. I'll be able to concentrate on the rest of the novel now. I like your writing group's name - it is really good having support any time of the day (well, if anyone is online at 2 a.m hehe) but I would like to be able to meet up face to face too. I know some from the group have already, I'm just too far away from the rest of humanity to do that...the joys of country living eh? :)
DeleteWhat a productive month, Sam. Good luck with the publisher.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Wendy! I'm not expecting anything really, but it did give me an incentive to get that word count going :)
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