Why is it that a brilliant editing brainstorm is always bound to hit right after you've submitted a manuscript? You can pick at a project for weeks, but as soon as you send it off somewhere, BAM, that's when you realize how you can make it even better.
Or maybe that's just me. I sent off the current draft of Underbed to my agent, and minutes later the ideas began to hit -- a way to restructure and strengthen the climax, a detail that will tighten Jeremy Serpent's connection to one of his enemies, etc.. Oh well. I'll be revising again soon enough; those things can happen then.
I'm not sure how I feel about Underbed. The concept's been lurking in my head since last year; I originally meant to write it during last year's NaNoWriMo, but November was taken up by Spookygirl revisions and holiday monster sales. So I took the idea -- a teenage girl revisits the childhood nightmares that still lurk under her bed -- and filed it away for later.
I finally wrote the first Underbed draft during the last three weeks in January. I revised it while I was out of town in February. That's the fastest I've ever churned out a revised draft, and it's still too fresh in my mind for me to be objective. I always go through an UGH IT'S TERRIBLE TAKE IT AWAY phase with new projects, and I'm still there with this one. Still, some of its details make me smile, and at least I finally found a story for Serpent. (He's been waiting for six or eight years. He's shown extraordinary patience for a monster.) So maybe there's so merit in the mess. We'll see.
Now it's time to let it simmer, wait for feedback, and tackle more of my own monsters in the meantime.
Hi Jill,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, great blog; I'm having a lot of fun following it. You may have already covered this, and there's a better than average chance that I missed it at some point, but I was wondering how many rejection letters you got before you won the 2011 ABNA.
Many thanks,
Joel T. McGrath
Thanks, Joel. I plan to write a post about my experiences with rejection as soon as I have time. Before entering the ABNA contest, I submitted Spookygirl to thirty-three literary agents. A number of those submissions resulted in requests for partial or full manuscripts, but all eventually turned into rejections. I also shopped three other manuscripts around before Spookygirl; if I added up all my rejections for all four manuscripts, the total would probably be near a hundred.
Deletehi. Just wanted to to congratulate you on your publication. I will most definitely buy a copy when it comes out. Also, I think it's your story and blog that inspired me to create my own blog. Not sure how lol, but it did somehow. weird.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, love your cover. I understand what the smile does to the story. it says SO much and takes away from the dark tone your story seems to have. From the title alone, I get humor and a teen goth about to mess with some ghost. :)
Thanks!
So glad I could inspire you, Tony! Best of luck with the blog.
Deletesorry, about the repeat message about your cover; I though it didn't go through. I guess it was awaiting approval.
ReplyDeleteNo worries -- I moderate comments to avoid spam, and sometimes it takes me a few days to approve them.
DeleteI've noticed I tend to drag my feet when it comes to editing until I've submitted my manuscript somewhere or passed it to a beta reader. As soon as that happens, I can't stop editing. I makes getting feedback a challenge.
ReplyDeleteI do like to do one pretty major revision before I ask anyone to read a new manuscript -- I tend to work through rough drafts quickly, so they always need some clean-up before they're presentable. But I know what you mean -- it's such a temptation to tinker after submitting. I'm trying to stagger which beta readers I ask to look at Underbed; a few already have it, and I'll ask several more to take a look after the next round of revisions. That way I'll still get fresh reactions from new readers.
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