Friday, May 27, 2011

Rough Cut

I'm taking a writing class, Make Your First 50 Pop!, by Christine Fairchild (http://editordevil.blogspot.com/).  It is an on-line class, using the Yahoo Groups format, and I've found the other students to be accomplished and enthusiastic.  It has been a lot of fun.   

The idea is that before the class began we all sent Christine, an editor with 20 years experience and a helluva good writing teacher, the first 50 pages of a nearly-finished work.  Then, over the course of the class we've been submitting sections of those 50 pages to illustrate the different lessons she sends out.  At the end she'll send us back the 50 pages we submitted, along with her editorial comments.

I think my first mistake was sending in 50 pages of a work that's not quite finished.  Actually, it's not nearly finished.  I had it to a stopping place (about 70k words), then let it lie for several months, picked it back up with a bunch of new ideas, and have been reworking it ever since.  The next mistake was reading the lessons she sent us, because by the time I got to lesson 4 I realized I had the whole thing organized wrong.  Oops.

I emailed Christine this morning and she hadn't started working with my first 50 pages, so she was willing to let me send in a revised version.  Which means I have to polish the rough cuts I've made and send it in.  While I'm supposed to be re-writing the ending of another big project.  And working full time.  And it's a holiday weekend. 

Hallelujah!  Worse things could happen to me.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Puppy Crack

We have a new puppy.  He's not quite 4 months old, and he's the sweetest, funniest, most loving little thing that God ever created.  He's 3/4 lahsa apso and 1/4 terrier, so sort of a big dust mop with feet. 

We got him from my sister-in-law's neighbor, and when we got him my SIL told us to feed him Purina Puppy Chow.  Now, my SIL has never recovered from learning what we spend on the all-natural, organic canned cat food we feed our cats.  I know it's expensive, but it's cheaper than paying for the surgery our cat had to have to remove the bladder stones that dry cat food gave him.  We bought our puppy supplies at Pet Smart, and they carry Purina Premium.  I do what I'm told, so I bought some.

The puppy loved the Purina Premium puppy chow, however when it was time to shop again, I was at the grocery store where they carried regular Purina Puppy Chow.  He didn't like it quite as much, but he ate it.  Can you say Puppy Crack?  After 48 hours of the new food, he was a different boy.  Still happy and loving, but flying around almost frantic with energy.  He kept my daughter up all night, whining and carrying on, which he hadn't done since we first got him.  And he forgot the "dogs poop outside" concept. 

The way I figure it, Puppy Crack = more filler = more grain = more sugar = frantic puppy = dog shit all over my house.  Didn't take me long to do that math, so today I went to the place where I buy my cat's food and got some all-natural, organic, meat-based puppy food from Canada.  He's been much calmer since lunch.  I'm hopeful that he soon remembers that the outdoors is his toilet.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Finding my way

This is a departure, a step towards something exciting and new.  I'm in the process of getting my first book published.  Well, okay, it's a novella, and all that's happened so far is that an editor has read it and emailed me to say she is interested in publishing it if I was willing to change the ending.

Pause.  Change the ending?  Really?  I kinda liked the ending.  On the other hand, I'm a total newbie, and figure I'm open to constructive input.  But I was still clutching, at least until I talked with Shel, one of my beta readers (and sister....who happens to live in LA and work in the entertainment industry).  She pointed out that I'd given it a real Hollywood ending, with the heroine giving up her source of power when she met a good man.  Ick.  I did that?  Oops. 

So I emailed the editor today and proposed a different ending, couching it in terms that suggest I'd still be open for suggestion.  And then I checked my email about 7000 times.  I keep telling myself to drop it off a cliff, be happy they liked it enough to email back, and what will be will be.  And I'll tell myself that again after I go check my email.....