Quote:
Originally Posted by Barney  Do you show your stuff to any friends before you send it out? I have a friend who is a very keen reader and he has looked over one of my stories. It's a helpful process - quite interesting to see what they thought the strengths and weaknesses were, especially when they don't like your favourite bits and like the bits you thought were quite pedestrian! |
I know I do... My girlfriend is very much my own personal editor at the moment.
I have to admit though, lately I had been suffering from that afliction known as 'the gitters' - you know the feeling right? You have a finished novel, the first of many, and you are hit by that initial adrenaline rush of preparing a submission or two, which you send out sometime later.
Then... All this stuff goes through your mind. Good and bad things, all of which can be an experience nevertheless. I know I am the world's worst when it comes to niggles. And sometimes they explode out of all proportion.
My girlfriend had a go at me last night for being silly. She absolutely loves this series I'm developing.
"It's amazing." She says, "Don't change anything."
Mind you, my beloved also talks to the characters as much as I do... Perhaps even more. One of her close friends read a couple of pages (an earlier draft) and loved it too. And now they talk about goings on in the 'L' place as if gossiping about last night's events down the pub. On our little get togethers the live-action-role-play comes in very useful indeed.
The novel itself was originally written as two, which I merged to one later, then sat on for about three months or so, then rewrote, edited, sat on, then edited again before sending out. So I guess in the scheme of things, I did sit on it for a while. I'd completed the last edit near the end of March, and then spent the following week planning out book two (a new and important character comes to play here, and I needed the right entrance for her)... About half that time was spent down the pub.
Twi