Monday, October 20, 2008

A Long, Long Time

No excuses. Just busy. In the middle of trying to finish up my 3rd packet for Vermont College, my editor finally sent the first revisions of Faithful. It was exciting to see them, and have this step in place, but for a while I felt pretty overwhelmed.

On my Vermont work: Sarah continues to really like my middle grade novel, so my goal is to finish it this semester. The main character is hilarious. I'm not sure where he comes from. I don't think of myself as a comic, but Barty comes from somewhere inside me, and yet he makes me laugh. I know that sounds a little weird, but it's true.

On my novel: Jen didn't have much to say past the first five chapters, and the comments she did send were to dig deeper into my character and add more of what Maggie's thinking about in the beginning. This was not too hard, since I, too, felt those chapters were racing along, and I felt they needed a bit more. That's now done, but I'm revising the entire novel once more.

Which brings me to another discovery - Darcy Pattison's Novel Metamorphosis. I highly recommend it for revision. If you have the chance to take one of her workshops, I'd jump at it.

And now I have to put on my mom hat and steer my teen son in the right direction - he's doing well, but, gosh, I'm glad I'm no longer in high school. He said yesterday that he'd just like to fall asleep and wake up at 25. Sadly, as I told him, he'd still have to go through the dreck to come out the other side.