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Latest On The Red Fox

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here. Here’s what’s up with Because Of The Red Fox.

The book is formatted, and the front cover looks pretty cool (if I do say so myself–and I did!). I’m currently rereading the manuscript aloud to my daughter, and she is giving me some good insights. At the moment I feel like the changes I need to make (and I do need to make them!) may not be ones I can complete in time for my early Novermber launch date.

But that may be just me feeling a bit tired and overwhelmed–I’ve been working hard on many projects for the past few months!

This is yet another challenge of being a writer, whether you’re intending to self-publish or not. At what point do you decide you’re done–you’ve done all you can do? I thought I was close to that point … near my limit. But … some parts of this novel work really well (in my humble opinion!). I feel determined to work over the less well, so that they come close to the feel of those “wow, I really did it!” sections.

And I still feel committed to launching the book soon. Part of me wonders though if I can do so within 2012.

The answer is: let’s see what I can do within the next two weeks.

To be continued!

 

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Farewell, WIP

Okay, I finally took down my work-in-progress version of Because Of The Red Fox. Why? Because I’ve tweaked the novel enough that–to my mind, anyway–it is significantly different from what I’d posted.

It isn’t really tremendously different. Just has some things making more sense, mistakes corrected, aspects of the story stronger.

I don’t think I ever realized that I could feel this way about a book: I have a notebook of little and a little bit large edits, but I absolutely know that I can make the changes I want and that I’ll like the results. Heck, I love the book already! It’s 97% what I want to say and how I want to say it. I know it will never be “perfect”, but I feel that in a few weeks I’ll be able to say: “This is good.” And let it be.

I hope you end up liking it too!

And even if you don’t, I definitely have more books up my sleeve. Maybe you’ll enjoy one of them!

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Rewrite!

So, here’s what I’ve been up to this past week.

1. Rereading the whole story and marking it up.
I have spelling and grammar to fix, and (more important), small and large chunks of the story to tighten or mix up or rework in other ways. And I’ve made notes about characters, and themes and symbols — patterns that thread their way through the story. And notes about the magic. I want the magic to make sense, as far as the context of the story goes!

The fun part is that in rereading the story I’ve discovered a few things that I (in a good way) hadn’t even known were there. So I’ve made notes about how those hidden things may be strengthened.

So, I have a bit of work ahead of me, but I don’t think it has to take very long. I’ll just go down my list, answering my questions, and tweaking this and that. I’m curious to experience the result when I’m done.

2) I’m also starting to work with a template — choosing a particular size for the book and preparing to plunge into all the 6″x9″ inch books I ca, so I can see what type styles and formatting I really like. I’ve mocked up a cover, but haven’t started the actual artwork that will be the cover.

Really Fun!

In rereading the book I realize who Lily and Amber (the sisters in charge of the chicken shop) are.  All of the sudden, they have a far more important role in the story than I originally realized!  Because of who they are, a whole bunch of other stuff is going to be tweaked, just a little.   The book as a whole probably won’t change significantly, but it ought to feel more “in tune”.

This tweaking really feels like when I tune my harp. When I start bringing the strings in tune, the harp as a whole leaps into more resonance.  Here in the book, by figuring out who Lily and Amber are (and their family), the two chapters with which I’d been most discontent (Magic of Mouse and Island At The To Of The World) suddenly make sense.  I’m finding (to my surprise) that I don’t have to change is much as I’d thought I might.

There are changes though.  Through the unexpected magic of revision, I’m discovering that what seemed dangerously random to me before actually … is fine.

This is a very, very fun process!