So I see I haven't posted to my blog since early September. Not that anyone was clamoring for more information about me and my writing trials and tribulations, but it's time I got back on track. Here goes.
I had surgery in late September, and while I was home recuperating I took advantage of my (sporadically awake) time to edit the first half of my novel. I cut out whole passages, whole scenes, etc and saved them in a 'deleted scenes' file on my computer, just in case. When I started, the first half was 148 pages or so. End result? 81 pages of a manuscript that reads tighter and tells a more compelling and engaging story. Here's the feedback I got from my ICL instructor, Nancy Butts: "You've done an absolutely amazing job with this revision. The book has great pace, a good depth of emotion, lots of drama, and it all hangs together so well now. What a long way you have traveled since the first version of the novel."
Yay!
I took a little hiatus from the book revisions and wrote a short story for a historical fiction contest. I called it "Barbara, Baseball, and The Beatles," about a family in 1965 visiting NYC for a combo business trip and baseball game. At the same time, The Beatles were in NYC to film the Ed Sullivan Show and play the first stadium concert ever at Shea. Contest winners will be announced in February- there's a cash prize, but the best prize is national publication in a newsletter that goes to pretty much every major publisher in the industry. That's free publicity and name recognition for the winner. Had to give it a try.
Now, while we await the birth of our first grandchild, I'll get back to work on editing my novel. The second half awaits.
