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I can really relate to this LOLcat right now! I haven't been playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, but I have been working on my new proposal. Working hard, actually.
I thought I had finally nailed the first chapter. Yes, it took awhile, but it sometimes does. I was happily moving forward with the next two chapters, writing scenes and polishing old ones. I went back and reread my first chapter.
My first thought was boring. I tweeted that. My second was something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what.
These weren't the usual "this really sucks" that many writers experience as part of their process. This was something deeper that put a screeching halt to my forward progress. When that happens, it usually means I took a wrong turn somewhere earlier in the story. But here I was in the first three chapters! Yikes!
I hadn't shown any of the writing to anybody just the story idea. I decided I needed a second opinion. Someone else to tell me yes, something is wrong or no, keep going.
Yesterday, Rose and I had lunch with my good friend and Love Inspired Suspense author, Terri Reed. She handed me a print out of my chapter. Verdict—writing was great, but something wasn't right with the first chapter. She had trouble putting a finger on it, but had a few ideas. Turns out it's not a little wrong, either. It's a full rewrite needed wrong. Sigh...
This is when a piece of dark chocolate really comes in handy. Except it's Lent so I had to survive without!
I spent the afternoon and evening trying to figure out a way to fix everything that was wrong. Once I had a fix and how the book should open, I emailed my editor. I explained what was going on with the proposal. This is where the time difference between where I live and London comes in handy. When I woke this morning, I had a reply from her. She was understanding as she always is and gave me some extra time to work on it. She also offered to help so I sent off another email with where I am right now.
After so many sold manuscripts (not to mention a RITA® finalist this year), you'd think I'd be able to get it right the first time. Nope. I wrote a bunch of openings for my upcoming November release Firefighter Under the Mistletoe before finding the one that was right.
With this new manuscript, I'm happy I knew something was off with this one, too. Now I can fix it before submitting the proposal. I wasn't as lucky with Expecting Royal Twins! Progress! Yay! Of course, it only took me how many years and completed manuscripts to get here? LOL!
