Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Revised Word Count Goes Up

Marks of Repentance now sits at 8986 words revised, and the first 5K is off to critiquers. Again. The good thing about THAT is it renders more polishing of those first two chapters pointless for now. The only direction left is forward. At least, that's the only direction worth considering. :P

A few weeks ago when I received back my last round of crits, I came to the conclusion that I needed to eliminate Shanh's point of view from the first few chapters. I had a short scene from his pov in each chapter alongside longer ones from Taifa's. Now everything is from her eyes until they actually physically meet. She's seen him already, decided what kind of person he must be, and just realized she has no decision but to join her fate with his. Tomorrow will be the first scene from Shanh and I think it will be fun to revise. Because in the original the reader has already met him, I have a few areas to flesh out in this new first scene, but I do believe he is coming out with a more rounded personality this way. Strange but true.

In other news, I pulled out an idea for a hen-lit last night that I've played with on and off for the past couple months. I found that the Palm and its keyboard fit nicely on a hardcover and that the typing height and angle works well in my recliner! So I spent awhile *interviewing* my new main character Dorothea, commonly known as Dottie. The working title will be Connect the Dot. Not sure when I'll start writing. I'm not actually in any hurry, as most of my brain cells are occupied with Marks for now, and I don't want to rush that. I just need something new to turn over and now I've found her.

Poor Dottie. She doesn't know what she's in for.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Where do you submit for critiquing?

Valerie Comer said...

I have a few friends that I swap stuff with as needed, usually whole novels. The crits before this (on the previous incarnation of these 25 pages) was an adhoc group set up simply for the Genesis contest by some folks who are entering. Nothing formal or permanent.

Unknown said...

Oh. I know that Critter.org is a good group but it has to be sf or fantasy or horror. My bro-in-law was interested but this didn't work for him. that's why I was pickin' your brain. Do you feel relief at being "done"?

Valerie Comer said...

Done? What is this *done* of which you speak? I've still got 9/10 of the novel left to revise! :P

The genre for Critter.org would work for me, generally speaking, but the crit system I have is working really well for now. I met most of my critting pals through Forward Motion www.fmwriters.com. Your BIL might be interested in looking it up.

Unknown said...

Lol, That's why I put it in brackets:)Obviously you're not there yet.

Thanks for the tip on the site-will check it out.

Kait said...

Um, is hen-lit like chick-lit but for "more mature" ladies?

Sounds like you found a comfy place to write!

Valerie Comer said...

Yes, Kait, you got it on the hen-lit. What horrid nomenclature, eh?

Katie Hart - Pinterest Manager said...

Don't know why I didn't see this post earlier (must have been mean old Bloglines), but my grandma's name is Dorothea, and she goes by Dot.