"Tied to the whipping post." - A. B.
My face-to-face critique group meets tonight at my house for one last thrashing of "One Promise Too Many" before it goes out to agents one last time. If no takers this time, this WIP goes into the dark closet of doom. I'll have two dishes to serve them. They better critique wisely.
How many books do you have in the dark closet of doom waiting for resurrection when your novels are selling like hotcakes at a Catholic breakfast and Spielberg has you on speed dial for movie rights to your next novel?
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6 comments:
Hope the thrashing wasn't too painful, Rick. And good luck with your WIP!
I guess we all have odds and ends in the closet/drawer...I have 1 waiting for a final rewrite, 1 that's going in tonight for a quick snooze, and 1 that's too short to be anything more than a nice story. And getting ready to start the next one...But I'm a rank amateur compared to lots of people!
I have dozens of short stories that languish, though occasionally I drag one out and tinker with it. I also have two young adult novels that I still think are pretty good (though a bit dated now), and if there ever is a demand for my stuff, I might drag them out. They were intended to be a trilogy, so there's that whole unfinished business aspect to them too.
Hope your critique group had positive things to tell you.
I've got four books in the closet. Two might see the light of publishing...they're in my Jeff Resnick series, but my publisher is so s-l-o-w (they won't do multi-book contracts), it could be 5-6 years before they're published--if they accept them.
I was a finalist in the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's best first traditional mystery contest with one of the others, and my then-agent advised me to write a second book in the series. They're both collecting dust.
I haven't given up, but I might have to go micro small press with those, as my agent isn't enthusiastic about them. (Too many similar books out there.)
Best of luck with the critique group! I was thinking about you this morning on the way into work… hoping you'll get a break. Day job, novel accepted, preferably both.
Not published (yet), but I have a completed novel in the drawer. It might have been marginally publishable in 1980, when I wrote it, but nowadays saying S&S is saturated is like saying fish like water. I'm considering serializing it as an audiobook if I can find a better voice than mine, or on my blog. But I need to finish FAR Future first, and that's going to take a while.
Good luck, Mr. Rick.
Verdict passed: No major flaws, a few minor fixes (less than three hours work), some concerns that I have a first person protagonist with a third person POV major character (after consideration--it stays as is), a minor concern about the length and presentation of the first significant backflash (will break it into its own chapter and see if I can shorten it--lord knows how).
Forward into the darkness of interviews today.
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