September 2009
9 posts
I am attempting an expedited get-manuscript-ready-for-the-workshop-so-I-cry-less-as-my-world-comes-crashing-before-me edit. This is the equivalent of a literary lobotomy. So what’s the most efficient way to accomplish this? Read for modifiers and adverbs. And then get rid of about sixty percent of them.
True story.
All in a Row
I am terrified of turning into one of those writers who only socializes with other writers and people in publishing. Of course, it’s a natural gravitation - common ground, a forum of curious, interesting people off of whom to bounce your ideas - but really, it can quickly become mentally alienating. While I am excited to be around people who understand what I’m experiencing and the...
The Timeliest Things We Need Most
…I got into the 92Y novel workshop. Wow.
I suppose this is the equivalent of diving in headfirst; while I have some validation that my manuscript is good enough to get me into this ten person, selective class, I’m now back to comments, critique, revision, workshop, and the emotional fluctuation that is intimacy with your own work. And the word “query” is going to...
Scratch that - not one, but TWO unsolicited requests from readers for the rest of my manuscript after reading the first chapter. His words: “i want you to send me the rest because i need to know what happens.”
:)
Boston in Common
In this midst of this week’s pouty, what-does-it-all-mean-and-will-I-ever-be-good-enough existential crisis #512, I got the unexpected lift that I needed: a completely unsolicited request from someone to read my manuscript.
She had found my portfolio through this blog, read the first chapter, passed it around her office and left a note for me: “we want more.” (And 204 more...
Editing music of choice: Mozart’s Requiem. Every change seems epic.
Solvent and Solution
The classic, cliche question when someone meets a psychologist is, “Are you analyzing me?” It comes up in the tired scripts of a million films, and perhaps people actually say it in real life (though growing up, practically all of my friends’ parents were psychologists, and I can’t say I ever saw this happen once).
As a writer, I’ve started thinking that the real...
When Winter Says Goodbye
About seventy-five percent of my thoughts in the last several months have been devoted to deciding whether or not I am ready to query. As I’ve said a million times, it’s sometimes almost impossible to pull yourself out of your own work to get some perspective on it to realize what’s great, what’s okay, what’s flat out unusable - and whether that package means...
Go Get Your Shovel
Endeavoring - for the first time - on Pynchon tonight. Making premature predictions based on nothing but stereotype, I foresee one of the following occurring as a direct result from reading V. on the F train:
a) I will get asked out by a gentleman in horn-rimmed glasses and suspenders
OR
b) I will get many, many dirty looks from fellow commuters
Considering I will probably be reading this for...