March 2010
6 posts
One Thousand and Five Days Later
It’s 9:52 on Sunday, February 28th. And my manuscript is done.
I just pressed “send” on a full request, and for the first time, I know I’ve just sent off the book I wanted to write. It’s taken me just shy of three years of writing, one year of editing, four workshops, ten beta readers, two insanely devoted editors, and one emotional breakdown, but I did it. This...
February 2010
8 posts
Looking out my window at my small Park Slope block, which resembles a gigantic wedding cake right now, I have to squint to remember what Brooklyn looks like not covered in snow. But then I stop trying to remember, because I can scarcely think of anything more beautiful.
Thirty-Seconds (Fall) Flat
The ubiquitous “they” say you’re supposed to have a thirty-second pitch of your novel ready to rattle off at the drop of a hat. After all, you never know when you’ll be stranded inside a subway car, gasping for your last breath with the Group President of Harper Collins, or marooned after a plane crash with Amanda Urban, where you are the only two survivors (yes, I’m...
It's a Stick-Up!
Tonight, I will do either the most ingenious, awesome thing that I have ever done in this history of this book, or the dumbest, most confusing thing that I could possibly do in the history of this book.
The suspense. It’ll kill us all, I know.
All of the big holes have been filled in. The party conflict scene and new prologue are written, and while they may change, they’re done enough to...
Get Thee to an Agency
Back in August, I reached my first stopping point. I’d finished the first draft of the manuscript in March, but knew I had months of edits ahead of me. I’d reread it four or five times and found the spots I knew needed to grow. By August, all of those changes were in the pages. I’d been so smothered by the 55,000 words, the plot, the sequencing, and the actions, that I had no...
The Fight
I spent January living life instead of writing about it. And it was incredible. But now it’s February, and I have to snap back into a bit of reality: I have about two months to get the final edits into this manuscript and pop my head back onto the radar of agents.
I’ve been editing for nearly a year, and just when I think I’ve run out of things to learn from rewriting on my...
Maybe these words are the ones.