Saturday, January 19, 2013

Stress: Ugh!


I haven't gotten my manuscript from Jeremy.  I'm still a bit worried about that, but he didn't work today for me to ask him about it.

Mr. Huey says I need to work on characterization and the setting for the first chapter, despite many people saying I don't need to describe the coffee shop in detail.  It's one of the wonderful things about writing.  There's not a right answer in this situation and I don't know where to go with it, but he gave me something to think about.  I think my target audience won't need description and other audiences will.  Maybe it's best to wait until I have an agent or publisher to make any changes – or rather revert to sections of a previous version with description.

Raven seemed to like what I had for her today.  I gave her a present.  Due to her lack of knowledge in formatting and her poor spelling skills, I typed up all her current work on her novel during the week, printed it out yesterday, and wrote my comments there.  Today, I transferred it to her computer.  My advice was to first finish her rewrites on the original draft, then to look at my comments and incorporate them.  I also told her to take one big comment at a time so she's not overwhelmed.  When a friend of mine from college saw the first page, he made the sign of the cross at her and blessed her.  It's like I told both of them: I wouldn't have put so much work into her novel if I didn't think it was worth investing in.  She's got two weeks before I'm back at Books.  I hope she makes good progress.  She also asked me to look at a sort of short story and make comments.

I like this new social thing I have going on.  Well, at least on Saturdays.

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