Carolyn's Blog

Sunday, July 25, 2004

OK. Still at 92K despite how much ripping, cutting and reordering is going on. I have no idea if this thing hangs together now, but that's because I've been busy fixing things. My main concern at the moment is the ending. I'm freaking about that because my h/h I think spend too much time apart. But the other issue that's creeping in there is the number of complaints from hitting the lists right now about bad judges, that is, judges who gave very low marks etc. And what I heard in response, under all that understandable upset is a lot of writers who are not facing up to the possibility that the judges were right, and, in some cases, writers who seemed to have failed to absorb what I feel is the key to a writer's improvement, namely, that it's about evoking a reaction. If a story is so good that a judge says it must have been plagerized, what is the message to take from that? It's not that some judges perhaps kind of stink. That isn't going to make the recipient more insightful about her writing. What the writer needs to come away with is this: "Hey,that person thinks I'm pretty good@" So, getting around to the reason that freaks me, is I am now worried that I'm paying attention to the wrong things and not attending to what will make me a better writer.
On the other hand, having recently had some feedback about the intial chapters of The Heir, someone said she thought the opening needed more of a hook. Arggh! Not my baby! And not to mention that perhaps this person's own writing needed some work, too. But actually, she was right, so I cut the opening para and that did help. But what if I didn't do enough? I can't even bring myself to look at the written comments yet, I'm such a chicken.
Plus, since I'm on a roll, what about the ending? It sucks. It sucks it sucks. Shoot. I need to give some serious thought to this and get it fixed. Which I will. sigh.

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