It has been quite some time since I have added to my blog. Like everyone else, there was Covid, post Covid, and then finding the normalcy of day-to-day life again.
So, I return to my blog today with some good news.
In the not too distance future my third novel will be released. And this novel has had quite a journey.
I wrote the first draft before Covid. And to be honest with you, as much as I thought it was a good story it became 'my problem child'. No matter how many times I reread it I couldn't seem to make it work and I could work out what it needed.
I gave it to several friends to read, some who had read my previous novels in the early stages of editing and even though there was some really clear feedback even with those changes I couldn't make it work. Each edit was taking me in the right direction but I just didn't think it was going anywhere.
About to give up on it was then thought that I thought it deserved one more try - and sent it to my favourite freelance editors Emma and Lucinda @Flying Pants Editing. I told them it was my problem child, the one I just couldn't figure out and that it would be perfectly okay for them to agree - that not every manuscript is going to make it.
Then I waited.
For those of you who are writing and would like feedback from a freelance editor I can highly recommend it, but you also need to have patience. It takes time - they have to read it, probably more than once, gather their thoughts, write a report and then deliver the hopefully good news that all of your toiling away at the keyboard hasn't gone to waste.
While I waited I had did absolutely nothing - didn't start another manuscript, didn't write on my blog. I just waited. I had decided then that this was the absolute end of my writing career. Time to step back from the computer and find another hobby. (Although this sounds dramatic, I often have and still do think this and I'm sure I'm the only writer who does - it's a fickle hobby.)
When the report finally came, I jumped right in. This could go either way - delete the manuscript or get ready for a rewrite.
I am happy to report that my problem child is no longer that. After several pages of guidance, questions, detailed feedback, I took to the keyboard and started yet another rewrite.
The title of this blog post is Some News to Share - Part 1. That's because this is only the first part of the long journey this manuscript has taken to get to the bookstore shelf.
Part 2 - well that's next week and, as a spoiler, I can tell you it also includes a part when I, again, declare that my writing career is over.
