Quite the day today. First off, Happy Birthday to my Sweetie! He was a real trooper to go with me to take his Mom to the doctor. She did well and had a good checkup, but that is still a long day on your birthday. The killer homemade cheesecake will be waiting in the fridge in the morning.
And second, I got some very encouraging and constructive feedback on my first novel! I was anxious before I started reading, but once I did start, I never had one second of feeling bad about it. Maybe because I’ve been learning so much more since I sent it in, and I had more of an idea what needs to be done. But a big part of it is I KNOW I’m ready for feedback and input. No one, and I mean no one, does anything like this alone. You write your first draft alone, and of course you do a ton of revising alone, but so many people are involved all along the way, from patient spouses, partners, and family members to beta readers to various editors to cover artists and layout designers. Then the ultimate collaboration starts: between the writer and the reader. Working together is one of the best things about all of this, particularly in the indie publishing community. I can’t wait to dig in and see just how much we can improve this novel!
My only problem? I have 44,399 words written on my CampNaNoWriMo project, with a goal of 50,000. And time is quite short in April. I’ve been so excited and keyed up and eager to get started on the revisions to Hand Me Downs this afternoon that I’m having trouble focusing! Anyone who’s read much of what I write knows I can do that many words pretty quickly, but I do have to DO it.
So, I’m hereby promising to go upstairs right now and write at least 1000 words before I crash. I’m aiming for 46,000. Tomorrow is a writing/get ready for writing retreat day, so I know I’ll get there. And as always, in fiction and in life, I’m so excited to see what happens next. 🙂
Peace.
