Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Home Stretch

Hey, y'all, it's Ink, and she's not happy.

I'm roughly two chapters from being done editing my first novel. This edit was highly productive: I got rid of (most of) the crap and filler, added more fun stuff, cleaned up the prose, and had a blast doing it. But now that I'm 30 pages away from the end, I can't seem to let go.

Yeah, I've been crazy-busy. I've been writing other stuff. I've had the end-of-quarter bedlam. But should that be an excuse?

Really, I'm a bit lost. So what do you guys do when you lose some of your writing discipline?

1 comment:

Dwight's Writing Manifesto said...

Inkers,

What you are experiencing is:

1. irrational
2. baffling

3. perfectly normal.

If not for inevitablity and nature, a vast percentage of women would stay 8-9 months pregnant for years.

It happens to all of us, especially when we near the completion of our first novel.

Soon your beautiful baby will go out into the world. What if people are mean? What if they don't think your baby is a beautiful as you know it to be?

And... Let's face it. Now we know the odds that it will get picked up for representation:

0.02%

Now that agents are keeping metrics on their queries they're almost all saying the same thing:

0.02% of the slushpile gets signed. Higher odds if you have an "in" or referral.

Gee, I wonder why you don't want to make that final puuuuuuuush!

So, instead, think about THIS:

You are approaching the best four month window of the year for submissions.

No holidays. Lots of agents cleared out their slush piles and reading over the Christmas break. No matter what anybody tells you, Summer is a shitty time to submit a manuscript. The time is now.

Do it.

Get excited.

You're about to have your first baby.

The world is alive with possibility.


PUUUUUUUUUSH!