Blood, Gore & Teenage Angst
It's here. At long last, November 6th--the day I begin revisions on Eighth Grade Bites--has officially arrived. I would squeal for joy, if I had no idea how much work is ahead of me.
One would normally begin revisions by rereading what one has written. I'm doing things a bit differently this time around.
In my head I have an exact vision of how I would like this book to turn out. It involves a few new scenes, so I'm focusing on writing those today. Once I have them completed and saved on my desktop, I'll start the reread and insert them as I go. The real pain will be, of course, cleaning up what's already written and making certain not to give too much away too soon. But I'm not thinking about that today. I'm just writing new scenes.
All in all, I expect to be querying agents with Vlad by Spring. I'm hopeful that I'll be ready by Valentine's Day, but I've got to give my readers time to...well, read. Writing this book has been unlike any of my experiences, in that I'm breaking all my usual rules and adding a few new ones. For instance, two of my readers this time around are tweens--because they're part of my target audience and because they can give me feedback unlike anyone else. They won't comment on the writing, but on the story and whether or not they liked and understood it. I have six readers now--two of them are tweens, two are writers and two are adult readers. It's the perfect mix to get some good feedback on Vlad.
And now, without further ado, I'm going to sit down with Vlad for the first time in a month and hear what he has to say.
One would normally begin revisions by rereading what one has written. I'm doing things a bit differently this time around.
In my head I have an exact vision of how I would like this book to turn out. It involves a few new scenes, so I'm focusing on writing those today. Once I have them completed and saved on my desktop, I'll start the reread and insert them as I go. The real pain will be, of course, cleaning up what's already written and making certain not to give too much away too soon. But I'm not thinking about that today. I'm just writing new scenes.
All in all, I expect to be querying agents with Vlad by Spring. I'm hopeful that I'll be ready by Valentine's Day, but I've got to give my readers time to...well, read. Writing this book has been unlike any of my experiences, in that I'm breaking all my usual rules and adding a few new ones. For instance, two of my readers this time around are tweens--because they're part of my target audience and because they can give me feedback unlike anyone else. They won't comment on the writing, but on the story and whether or not they liked and understood it. I have six readers now--two of them are tweens, two are writers and two are adult readers. It's the perfect mix to get some good feedback on Vlad.
And now, without further ado, I'm going to sit down with Vlad for the first time in a month and hear what he has to say.
posted by Heather Brewer at 6:59 AM
2 Comments:
Offtopic
Hmmm, seems I should rename my blog. Ya beat me to the punch by a month, dang it.
Now to be on-topic... I wish you the best of luck! The tween market is always an active place, and it seems like competition can be stiff. Then again, the authors writing for that age range always seem to be in good spirits, so it must be pretty rewarding. :)
Great minds think alike. ;)
Thank you so much for the well-wishes. Writing is its own reward, topped only by having been read. So here's to success!
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