The Zoo: Week 28
Today is the twenty-eighth in a series of posts by San-Diego-based writer Thomas Shess who has decided to keep a journal on his journey to find a publisher for his novel.
Rookie Novelist at Work-Working with an experienced book editor has knocked a lot of cockiness out of my attitude about my novel in its earliest formats. I now am able to see how I was stifled for so long with chapters, phrases, paragraphs that I absolutely loved and couldn’t bear to part with come hell or high cliché. I would smooth these pet chapters until they were so slick that they were bright red on a gray day. And, of course, they didn’t work not matter how cute. So, instead of chopping the bad writing, I would revise the story to make sure these precious words had a nice place to fit in.
more after the break
Learning to love the Guillotine-Book editors have no love for bad writing or paragraphs that don’t add to the story impact. After my first session with Book Editor Mike Sirota, I came back bleeding as if I had tangled with a bobcat in a phone booth. If I couldn’t have my clever chapter headings I might as well quit writing. The silence was deafening. After a few days of pouting, I mopped up my imagined blood and moved on. I now have file on my computer that I visit occasionally like a dusty attic. I still love those words, but like that old high school annual-you gotta move on.
Closing Line-My neighbor Brad, who tinkers with vintage Model T’s asked me the other day how the novel was going? I described how I recently completed reworking sections of it under the guidance of an editor. “Tuning it up?” he asked, “That’s like working on an engine of a car. Take out a bad sparkplug and put in a good one and it runs a little better.” Yes, I responded to his analogy, but on some days fiction writing is like taking off the radiator cap of your old car and sliding a whole new sedan under it. One day it’s Ford and the next day it’s a Chevy.
Agents or Publisher’s interested in seeing a recently fine tuned first novel, a thriller based in San Francisco loaded with plenty of suspense, a damn good love story and a plot that works-Drop me an e-mail for a pithy synopsis.
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