I love Halloween. It's the jack-o-lanterns, the creepy decorations, scary movies, and the candy of course. Now, as the pumpkin starts to look a little shrivelled, I'm suffering my usual post holiday blues. Fortunately, I have my revisions to distract me from it.
I gave myself a week to cool off before reading the latest wip in its entirety. I managed it in a day, and there were few changes needed that I could see. That worries me. Am I objective enough? My co-writer husband was more involved in this project than the last one, so I'm not sure I can entirely trust his judgement either. Test readers are needed asap methinks.
One thing I did notice was that my protagonist comes off a bit snarly. She is, which is what I like about her, but will others like her? There are plenty of fans of "House", so I can hope. I've considered nicing her up a bit, but I don't want to end up with a bland main character, especially worrisome for a first person detective story. Besides, she needs a lot of fire to stand up to the even more snarly people around her. I'm going to keep it as is and, once again, see what my test readers think.
In the mean time, there are a few small edits to make and a new book to work on. I want to really challenge myself with the next one, not only in terms of story and characterization--I want to push my prose. I'm a lean writer, and I hate too many adjectives, but I want to try something literary, something sumptuous. Don't worry, I'm not turning into a snob. Genre writing is my first love, but I'm giving myself an education here, and I can't be too easy on myself. If I do get published and manage to make a career of it, I'm sure I'll have deadlines and promotion to worry about, so this is my best chance to experiment and improve my skill.
Done psyching myself up now. I can do this. Back to work I go. And, with any luck, Thanksgiving will be here before I know it!
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