Saturday, April 3, 2010

Work Well Done

I can't believe I haven't written a post since March 13th. Well, at least I've been writing.

Here's what I did: I printed out my whole book, all 300 pages in hard copy, and I did two hard edits on it. The first one I just went through and added dialogue and scenes but the second one I actually cut and pasted things in different order. I really started looking at the book as a integrated whole and physically cut - like with scissors - sections to move them around. I think it's work well done.

Now I'm ready to input this mess into the word document version of the manuscript, which is fine, except that the minute I make the first change my page numbers will be off and the only way I'll find any sections will be by searching for words or phrases. It's going to be tough but I know I'll end up with a better book.

As far as submissions, I haven't done any since those two that I mentioned on the 13th. I know I was supposed to submit the other More query and the Lilith Churches piece, but I have to say that somehow that church piece is too rough to do anything with, and I haven't gotten around to writing a proper query for the More piece.

The real problem is that my other blog takes up all my time. And not just the blog either. It's the commenting on everyone else's blogs, then commenting on my comments, then writing new posts, then finding new art. It's exhausting. I have to remember why I'm doing all this because sometimes, for the life of me, I can't remember. I believe it was connected to writing, right? Something like creating a Internet presence and an audience for my work? Eh. I don't even know if that's happening. I do know that I have what I consider to be some genuine friendships here among my fellow bloggers but that my real life marriage is suffering.

I can't afford to grow the other blog is growing it means that I have to follow and comment on more and more other blogs. There just is no time for that. As a matter of fact, I've decided that I have exactly 5 minutes each per day to devote to the blogs I read. I can't read other peoples' comments. And then I can get 20 done in an hour. Sick, scheduling that like this.

Anyway, to do list. Input all changes to manuscript into the word document for the ms. See how it reads. Does it have an arc, themes, characters, villains, heroes, a plot, a climax, dialogue and scenes? If it looks good, then we'll move onto the next step: querying agents and see what happens from there.

Is blogging working for you? Is it enhancing your life or destroying it? Can you handle becoming a popular blogger or will the responsibilities of being a good blogger buddy kill off your own work?

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