30/10/2015 0 Comments How much do you want to be published?I received another rejection this week. To be honest I don't receive anywhere near as many rejections as I think I should, so that's gratifying, but it's still difficult to have something I've worked on for months, sometimes years, returned with a polite note that it isn't good enough.
Yet. That's the message I received this week. It's not good enough - yet. That means it could be if I made some changes. Sure, I've just spent three months rearranging the structure, removing a couple of plot arcs, writing out a couple of characters and changing the focus from two characters to two others. I've worked damned hard on this story, and they say it still isn't good enough. What do you do? Me... I plan the next rewrite. That's how much I want this story to be published. I'll change whatever needs to be changed to make this story publishable. The characters will still be mine, the plot will still be mine, the world I created will still be mine. All the words written there will still be mine, they'll just be reordered and represented in a format that appeals to the publisher and matches their guidelines better than the previous version. The fact that I've totally rewritten this story three times already is irrelevant. If I want it to be published, I have to make the structure and the characters work for the publisher I'm targeting. That means I'll rewrite the damned thing as many times as I have to. That's how much I want to be published.
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22/10/2015 0 Comments Packmaster - Jess Buffett![]() 16/10/2015 0 Comments The Dreaded SynopsisOne thing I really have never enjoyed with my writing is writing a synopsis. That could be because I always get it wrong. The concept of a synopsis is quite easy. Leave out the detail. Hit the emotional highs and lows. Something that sounds so easy shouldn't be so hard to get right, but it is for me. I recently submitted Warrior Pledge and of course had to write a synopsis for it. I started the way I usually do: *Make note of all the emotional high points and low points in the story. Those are the things that get mentioned in the synopsis. *Choose which character to write from. A synopsis is from one character's point of view only, and it's generally in third person, present tense. *Describe how the character feels about and reacts to the emotional highs and lows. Sounds easy. I generally start out okay. The first paragraph is filled with tension and pretty phrases and is 'synopsisey'. Then it all falls apart, and I end up with four pages of chapter summaries. Boring. With Warrior Pledge, I tried something new. I wrote my usual chapter-summary-I-call-a-synopsis. It at least shows me all the emotional highs and lows. Then I took two pieces of paper, folded them in half lengthwise and put headings at the top. I wrote adjectives that described the personalities of the two major characters. Not what they thought or felt or did at any time, just their personalities. I ended up with something like the table below. Then I used those words and qualities to describe why Checa and Heath were doing what they were doing at the emotional highs and lows. The result? Every word a synopsis. So easy. Oh shit! What if I can't do it again with the next book? 9/10/2015 0 Comments This week's random ready reads![]() I have piles of books around my house, just waiting for me to pick them up and read them. Most often I'll only read parts of each book before I put it back on the shelve and choose a different group. I never intend to read all of them. I use them for ideas and to keep my mind busy. This week's ready-to-read pile includes: *Water Plants in Australia: A Field Guide by G. R. Sainty and S. W. L. Jacobs *Gardener's Latin: a Lexicon by Bill Neal *How Would You Survive in the Middle Ages by Fiona Macdonald, Illustrated by Mark Peppe *Stained Glass by Marc Gerstein and Lynette Wrigley *Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse by Paul Carter 2/10/2015 2 Comments Shifting ProjectsI'm almost to the end of the editing stage with The Planet Whisperer and it's on the steep slope toward release, so I'm making plans for the next projects. I always have more than one project open at the same time, with a number of projects also in a queue. I don't think I'll ever run out of ideas to write about. Today's queue looks something like this:
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