Triumph!
I finished the very large rewrite of my second book in the EDGE series last night! I emailed it to my editor, Patrick and to my agent, Kay. I collapsed in a gibbering heap. I think it is much improved and for that I owe thanks to my amazing writer’s group, Critical Mass. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my terrific editor who gave me the time I needed to improve this book. I’m looking forward to his notes that will take this book up another level.
This book is also an example of how stress affects your work whether you’re doing something creative or working as an accountant, landscaper, nurse, you name it. I was writing THE EDGE OF RUIN during the year we were building our house. Building a house is stressful when it works well, and we had the contractor from Hell so it was a nightmare. During this period I also lost Steppi, my grand prix horse to a terrible colic. It was probably the worst year of my life.
Book One, THE EDGE OF REASON is where my protagonist learns the secret that underlies much of the history of the world. Book two is where he comes to terms with the fact that he has to be in charge, and he learns to draw on his strength of will. Those of you who’ve been to my website, and downloaded THE ENSIGNS OF COMMAND will have seen my fascination with issues of leadership.
All in all yesterday was a really good day. Now I have to go deal with Western Minerals and Oil, and stop being a creative person and transform myself into a hard nosed business woman. Far less fun.
Oh, P.S. I got a nice review in Publisher’s Weekly. Usually I don’t read reviews because the book is published and there’s not a damn thing I can do to change it, and if they hate it, it just makes me feel bad because I’m a writer and I have a fragile little ego, but a good friend, and librarian Gail Gerstner-Miller mailed me a copy of the review. When it fell out of the envelope I was puzzling over why the clipping and by then I had read part of it.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I forced myself to actually read the PW review rather than just letting my eyes slide across words and sentences. My agent described it as nice. I’d call it “mixed”, but at least they didn’t slam me. (Which is what I actually expected and I was braced for that.)
March 19th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Congratulations on finishing your major rewrite of Edge of Ruin! I know you’ve been working like a demon on that, so it must feel wonderful to have it out the door.
I was irritated that the PW review misspelled your name as “Melissa”. I posted a comment to their forum pointing out the error, in the hopes they could at least fix it on the web. But that doesn’t help the print version…
And no, your novel definitely didn’t get slammed. I think it’s off to a great start.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Wow, I didn’t even notice that they called me Melissa. You can see how closely I was reading this thing.
Oh, well, Melissa is the default everyone goes to with my name. I guess they’re just so amazed with “Snodgrass” that the first name doesn’t matter.
After the age of about eight I never minded my last name. Makes you tough.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Ooops, didn’t mean to be the bearer of irritating news… I just figured, hey, it’s your name on the cover, and the reviewers have an obligation to get it right if they want to be taken seriously.
For a long time when I was younger I was pretty easygoing about people mangling my name: Ian, Ean, Ion, Jan, Sam, Iran, Eeyore (those are all real mispronunciations, btw– it’s such a common name in other parts of the world but Americans just can’t get it)… And my last name confounds people beyond belief, even though it’s simple. I’ve been acknowledged in books with a misspelled name. I’m amused by that, but in other arenas I’m more militant about correcting people than I used to be, _especially_ in the age of the internet. And I dread how much my name will get misspelled when my own books start coming out. I even worry about it getting misspelled on the cover…
March 20th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Congrats on finishing the edits.
One of the reasons I go with a pen name online (and hopefully, on book covers one day) is the fact my German last name would be misspelled and mispronounced _all_ the time. It also has one of those pesky umlauts.