Monday, January 26, 2009

Something so Simple

I've been working on SPEED, trying to get the proposal as perfect as I can before sending to my agent. I am almost done with it and sent to a chapter mate for a cold read.

WOW. One, she caught a lot of stuff no one else did. Two, she made a simple suggestion that totally streamlined the first chapter. It was good before, it is darn near perfect now. It was just a simple switching of scenes. She told me that after the first four paragraphs, I should go to the second scene and then put the first scene second.

My mind was blown. Blown, I tell you.

Fresh eyes make a world of difference. Of course, she hasn't read the manuscript thing till her eyes were bleeding. She doesn't go to sleep with lines from the book repeating themselves over and over and over.

Welcome to my freakshow.

Hoping to get this out this week. As long as there are no kid issues, no parent issues and no work issues, I should be able to do it.

Wish me luck!

5 comments:

PJ Hoover said...

I LOVE that kind of mind-blowing feedback. Getting it has to be one of the best feelings in the world of writing!

Amy said...

Good luck this week.

Sometimes a cold read really does need to be cold...it helps to show your work to someone who knows nothing about it because they have no idea what's in your head, only what's on the page.

Glad you got good stuff ;)

Keri Mikulski said...

Best of luck!

I know what you mean about feedback! My agent just sent my WIP PINKED back and I was blown away when I made the changes she suggested..

Anonymous said...

Hooray for awesome feedback! Good luck with the proposal. :)

Barrie said...

Ah, the joys of a good critique partner!