I received my novel feedback from Diana Rowland, author of the Kara Gillian Demon Summoner series and the upcoming novel My Life as a White Trash Zombie, as well as a kick ass person in general. I sent her my fifth draft, the very best I could do at this point and she gave me SO much useful feedback, it was amazing. (this lady is SMART!!)
My first reaction was, holy crap, this is going to be so much more work. Can I do it? Really? After all the time I've already spent on this novel? The fact that Diana said, "I know you'll be able to pull this together and sell it," is what's going to fuel me to tackle another round of rewrites. Whoops. Maybe I shouldn't have quoted her on that one..now the pressure's really on to sell it so I don't prove her wrong. ;)
One great thing she shared, which I can pass on to all of you, is to do a post novel outline. She suggested using sticky notes, or big sheets of paper, whatever works, and do a scene by scene break down of the novel to see what works, what doesn't fit etc. She said this is a method she uses and it's helped her tremendously. Only catch for me is, we were told yesterday by the real estate agent when he came to measure our suite that the landlords are putting the house up for sale (that's a whole other story, they leave two houses away, couldn't tell us?) so I'm not sure they'd appreciate a wall covered in sticky notes or sheets of paper with marker hanging all over the walls when they're showing the house. Aw, maybe I'll do it anyway.
My plan is to do a new "to do list" and tackle the changes, new additions one step a time so I don't get overwhelmed. The amount of work and time to fix it is daunting, but I'm trusting Diana that I'm on the right track.
In an additional shout out to this wonderful lady who has for some unknown reason taken me on to mentor me, here's the cover for her new novel coming out July 5, 2011. I got to be a beta reader for her and I'll tell you, it's AWESOME!!!!
And just look at the cover!! You know you're all going to want to buy a copy. Right after you wish me luck on my next round of novel rewrites. :)
My first reaction was, holy crap, this is going to be so much more work. Can I do it? Really? After all the time I've already spent on this novel? The fact that Diana said, "I know you'll be able to pull this together and sell it," is what's going to fuel me to tackle another round of rewrites. Whoops. Maybe I shouldn't have quoted her on that one..now the pressure's really on to sell it so I don't prove her wrong. ;)
One great thing she shared, which I can pass on to all of you, is to do a post novel outline. She suggested using sticky notes, or big sheets of paper, whatever works, and do a scene by scene break down of the novel to see what works, what doesn't fit etc. She said this is a method she uses and it's helped her tremendously. Only catch for me is, we were told yesterday by the real estate agent when he came to measure our suite that the landlords are putting the house up for sale (that's a whole other story, they leave two houses away, couldn't tell us?) so I'm not sure they'd appreciate a wall covered in sticky notes or sheets of paper with marker hanging all over the walls when they're showing the house. Aw, maybe I'll do it anyway.
My plan is to do a new "to do list" and tackle the changes, new additions one step a time so I don't get overwhelmed. The amount of work and time to fix it is daunting, but I'm trusting Diana that I'm on the right track.
In an additional shout out to this wonderful lady who has for some unknown reason taken me on to mentor me, here's the cover for her new novel coming out July 5, 2011. I got to be a beta reader for her and I'll tell you, it's AWESOME!!!!
And just look at the cover!! You know you're all going to want to buy a copy. Right after you wish me luck on my next round of novel rewrites. :)
