A friend of mine has started blogging and it reminded me that I haven't written or even looked at my blog in quite a while.
Perusing through my ramblings I notice that I tend to say things and never follow them up. So, here's a wee catch up on the submission half promise I made under the blog post entitled "Resolutions and Books".
I finally sent off a whole novel, not to a publisher, but to the New Writer's Scheme which is part of the Romantic Novelists' Association. I struggled terribly writing that novel and I wasn't overly happy with the finished product. I knew it needed a whole lot of work. I was encouraged by friends and other writers to send it off anyway as I was paying for the critique as part of my membership.
So I did. I sent it off.
And it came back about two months later.
And, oh heck... my fears were confirmed: it needed A LOT of work.
Yes, there were a few tears shed. It's funny how you know that there is much wrong with what you've written and you fully expect confirmation of that, but when you get it, you're still not quite prepared for it.
I got an amazingly detailed and constructive report (15 pages!), which listed the four main areas the reader felt needed improvement: characterisation, internal v external conflict and development of romantic relationship, the use of POV/Show not Tell, and developing individual voice.
As you can see A LOT of work required.
I thought it probably best to put the NWS novel on the back burner for a while. I'd spent nearly a year working on it and to do it justice I need to step back from it and evaluate how I'm going to tackle it.
Then November was upon us. You know, that month where many writers take the mad inclination to write a book in a month? Well, I embraced the madness and on the morning of 31 October I got my idea, made an outline ready for me to begin writing on 1 November.
A SHINY NEW STORY! Oh, the excitement of something new is just the tonic I needed. A new set of characters, a new set of problems to tackle and the good thing is I have the advice I received from my NWS story to bear in mind whilst writing it.
Sadly, this year, I didn't complete NaNoWriMo. My Mac's hard drive failed, I was already two days behind target (but slowly catching up), most of my novel (19k) I had emailed to myself but I lost 2k of new words that I hadn't had the chance to back up. It really threw me and I just lost the enthusiasm for the madness.
But I haven't lost the enthusiasm for the story and Fergus and Caitlyn's romance will be finished, hopefully in time for the next NWS submission.
