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Write, Jane, Write!

Write, Jane, Write!

Harding County milesProgress has continued on my mystery novel set in the wilds of northwest South Dakota since the last Gravel Road update about Jane and her excellent adventures. Of course, every good mystery novel is replete with twists and turns, and this one is no exception. What are the latest twists and turns?

The first is this.

My agent, a wonderful woman and mom to 3 lovely little girls, had planned to read it on vacation. But because that vacation included entertaining 3 lovely little girls, so she didn’t have time to read anything. Which turned out to be a good thing.

Because of the second twist.

My daughter did read the book and returned it with the most marvelous feedback. Feedback that, if implemented, will improve the novel immensely. Feedback that shows she could be a professional editor…and as a literature major she has the credentials. So if you’re looking to hire someone to shape up your manuscript, just let me know. But I digress.

Back to the second twist.

The feedback was so good, I emailed my agent and said, “If you haven’t read the book yet, don’t. Wait for the next draft which will incorporate the feedback from my daughter.”

On to the third twist.

My daughter’s feedback is as unique as she is, consisting as it does of items like the following:

  • Beef up the scene at the dump
  • Start the butterfly thing earlier
  • Get out of Jane’s head and into dialogue more often
  • Make the bad guy seem gooder (yes, I know that’s not a word) early on

And so on. My goal is to have this revision done by the last week of August when my daughter and her family come for a visit. So I can entertain the baby while she reads through it. Obviously a doubly self-serving goal, but worthwhile none the less.

Which leads to the fourth and final twist.

When I am deep into revision zone, my little inner voice pipes up every now and then with its favorite public service announcement:

Stop playing around and get back to work.

I stop and feel guilty for a moment until the realization dawns on me.

This is my work.

And I keep writing.

A Pair of Penetrating Eyes

A Pair of Penetrating Eyes

For about a week now, I’ve been editing Different Dream Parenting. going through the suggestions sent by the editor at Discovery House and making changes. The process is slow, humbling, engrossing, and painful at times. My thoughts ranged from Did I really write that confusing sentence? to Why does the editor have to be so picky? to I don’t want to do this anymore!

But then something happened this weekend which improved my attitude about the entire process. I was listening to an audiobook by a best selling suspense/conspiracy theory author. He’s written many books and made boatloads of money. Still, I won’t reveal his name – not out of respect, but out of compassion.

I walking along, listening to a scene where the protagonist (male) was in the hospital after an accident and the person who is revealed in the end as the antagonist (female) comes to visit. When the woman enters the room (wearing a white skirt that accentuated her tan legs), the author said, “She placed a pair of penetrating eyes on the man in the hospital bed.”

An image of two eyeballs lying on the fresh, white sheet covering the hospitalized man came to mind, along with several rascally thoughts:

Wouldn’t the eyes roll off onto the floor?
Or would penetrating eyes sink through the sheets and burn into the protagonist’s chest?
Did the sight of penetrating eyes make him want to barf?
What color were they?
Were these the antagonist’s actual eyes?
If so, is she now blind?
Or if they were extra eyes, did she pull them from a pocket?
Wait, wouldn’t penetrating eyes burn right through her pocket?
So were they in a carrying case?

And finally:

Why in the world didn’t the author’s editor catch that?
Thank goodness my editor wouldn’t let that kind of sloppy writing slip past her.

Suddenly I was eager to return the slow, humbling, engrossing, and sometimes painful task of editing that is ruling my life right now. I was grateful for my editor’s eyes which had deftly penetrated the snafus in my manuscript. Every now and then, I wonder, Does she ever take out those penetrating eyes on some poor sucker’s hospital bed?