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The Carrot and the Stick
After a hellish 6 day week at work I have today and tomorrow off. The plan was to revise Tangled Indulgence and finish “City of Bones” by Cassandra Clare. I am running a book club tomorrow night and am 3/4 through the book.
But then this arrived at work yesterday
I LOVE Maria V Snyder’s fantasy and have been waiting for “Scent of Magic” since finishing the first book in the Healer series.
Now what? I have two deadlines and only limited time off!
Nothing for it. Work comes first, so today I deleted 3k from Tangled Indulgence, making the story much tighter and more focused on the heroine. Tomorrow I will polish and ensure that all this deleting hasn’t left behind any issues. Tonight (after a new episode of Elementary) I will plough through “City of Bones”.
And my reward for working this hard? Saturday afternoon after work I will take the time for myself and read “Scent of Magic” without guilt or other pressures nagging at me. Talk about an awesome carrot:).
How do you reward yourself for hard work?
The hacksaw is out!
I am armed and ready. The manuscript is before me and my weapons of choice are different coloured pens and colourful highlighters.
It’s editing time for Tangled Souls (working title, may change;).
I have to admit I’ve been slashing quiet liberally. My first draft was rather wordy, i.e. using five words when one was sufficient. I’ve also discovered some consistency issues and a couple of dangling threads, but overall the first draft wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m hoping to finish my changes in the next couple of days and then TS will make it’s way to my crit partner. Victoria loves her red pen, so I’m expecting a number of review bubbles on the side. While she’s chopping her way through the story I will get my trusty Mary Buckham synopsis worksheets out of the cupboard and put together a synopsis. Believe me, if you have trouble with writing a synopsis, Mary’s worksheets are a godsend. Check out her website here.
Once I’ve worked through Victoria’s comments and I’m fully and completely happy, I’ll send it off to my editor and hope she loves my characters as much as I do.
So, still a hard slog before me, but editing means making the story better. I mostly enjoy it. Well, okay, the synopsis not so much, but the worksheets make it bearable:).
Have a good week everybody!
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