Saturday, February 18, 2006

ear-ache

Ouch - I have an ear-ache. I went to the doctor and he gave me a perscription, so I have some medicine for it. But my head hurts and the medicine makes me very sleepy.

Anyhow, good news - I finished my WIP first draft and sent it off to a very nice agent who responded to my query in record time. I was surprised - I thought I'd have at least another 2 weeks to work on the book, but she requested the full the same day I sent the query off when I was only about 3/4 of the way done. Luckily I had a solid outline / synopsis so I just sat down and wrote the ending in a week (about 20K)

It will certainly need fleshing out, but after going over it one last time before sending it off, I was really happy with the bones of the story. One thing about writing sparse, you can always add more later. I actually add a lot during edits - it's rare when I don't add 15- 20K to a finished book during edits. I'm also a good edit, take advice well, and can usually turn out a clean copy fast. I'm trying to think of the last time I had to cut things out of a book but I usually do that as I'm writing (picky writer here), and I love my mom's advice -" when in doubt, leave it out." That makes editing so much easier, lol. It's also good advice to an author - if you're agonizing over a sentence or a phrase, it's probably best just to eliminate it.

Anyhow, I'm off to bed now with a hot tea and to watch 'March of the Emperor' (about the penguins - not Napoleon.)

2 comments:

Virenda said...

Congrats and I really hope you feel better soon.

My daughter has an ear infection too and I can't stand when she is in pain. Ear infections are terrible, so sleep well and enjoy your tea. :0)

Sam said...

Thanks for the well wishes! The tea was soothing, but ear aches are annoying things - I feel your daughter's pain!
:-(
I hope she feels better soon!!