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| Day One |
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| Day Three |
The second piece of news falls into the “beware what you
wish for” category.
After many emails and planned phone calls that never
happened, I finally, finally (!) spoke with the literary agent who’s been
holding the manuscript for my first book captive since December.
She was kind and encouraging and
the good news is that my book is now being funneled to what’s called a beta
reader. In a few weeks (past experience tells me this really means a month or
more), Agent Lady will combine the reader’s notes with her own and get back to
me with suggestions.
Oh good. I get to revisit (and very
likely re-write) something I thought I put behind me a year ago.
But that’s not the reason I
listened to the downstairs clock chiming last night at 11:30 ,
then 12:30 and then woke at 4:00 and . . . . until I finally gave up and
got out of bed at 6:30 .
I had also sent her the first three
chapters of a mystery I’m working on.
And by the way, having never written a mystery before, let
me say I now have the deepest respect for the steel-trap minds of the authors
of all those who-dun-its I’ve been reading over the past half century.
This reason
I’m stalling and writing this instead of what I should be doing, is that
based on her suggestions, I need to figure out how to move the murder in this book
from Chapter 6 to Chapter 1 or 2. This, in a story in which the series of
events and characters are interlocked (hopefully), one to another.
Agent Lady
reminded me that the formula for just about any type of mystery requires that
the murder happen about two minutes after the reader has put his snack on the
side table and settled into his cushy arm chair. So now I need to go back and
begin a Jenga-like exercise of pulling scenes, setting them aside till later,
and hope the whole thing doesn’t come tumbling down.
And I was just beginning to write
Chapter 14. Sigh.
So much for
my previous post on the carefree life of a retiree.
well, not a writer except for my blog, but as a fellow artist I know how you feel. My two most recent clients wanted major revisions of the sketches I did for them, sketches which I put a lot of work into and thought were good and balanced.
ReplyDeleteThat's it. It's not so much that we've fallen in love with our work (which, admittedly, we probably have), but it's all the time we put in producing it.
DeleteCongratulations! No wonder you can't sleep. I would be a nervous wreck. You are such a great writer. You probably have a best seller there! Good that it is only red paint that is keeping me awake at night. I love the picture of your husband sitting there painting. Did you take that picture, or is it a painting? It should be framed and hanging in an art gallery.
ReplyDeleteThe photograph to his left on the table is a copy of the photo I took with my phone last summer on Cape Cod. We were driving around after dinner and stopped at Great Pond in Eastham just as the sun was setting. The colors in the sky and bouncing off the water were amazing.
DeleteWhat you're up to is beyond my comprehension. Go, go, go.
ReplyDeleteWell, the first book was an internal dare to just see if I could do it. At some point, I had written too much to leave it unfinished. The second book seemed like a good idea at the time. . . . .
DeleteMarty, good for you. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteThank you, but save your admiration. You haven't read it.
DeleteWow that your have an agent interested is HUGE. I do agree with her, I like my murders out of the way immediately. Good luck on the rewrites. That can be fun also--or so I have heard.
ReplyDeleteYour resident artist is really talented. That is a lovely painting.
Okay, Patti. If I'm going to deconstruct my mystery, it's helpful to hear the agent's opinion backup by a real person.
DeleteAnd the painting still has a ways to go - he still has two boats to add. (And I'd like a little more blue in the sky!)
Who said retirement was sitting back with our feet up? I'm busier than when I was teaching! Best of luck on your writing. I hope you get published. It would be a real thrill for you.
ReplyDeleteBoy, have you got that right, Red. And it's good to have a goal to work toward. One of my favorite blogs, http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/ recently had an entry of the importance of having a feeling of purpose as we age.
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