I've not abandoned the blog, I promise. Tomorrow is a Sunday, which means if I have time between Easter festivities I will be posting a journal. ("I know! I'll have a feature! That'll make sure I post regularly." Oh, over-optomistic self. Ha. And again, I say, Ha.) For tonight, I'll do some other stuff I promised I'd do.
Beta'ing. So, My first ever Beta partner and I finished reading each other's work a few months ago, I finished editing my way through her comments, and I haven't touched Accidents since (except to do some self-conscious editing. I can't help myself.) On the experience of having work critiqued, it was very constructive and encouraging, and I think I had a good partner. I wish I had a partner I knew a better, since it's a little easier to do cross-examination with a friend. There were a few things, mostly small, on which I very strongly disagreed, and I had to just take it as a difference in taste/lack of understanding.
On the experience of critiqueing - I've done it before, on a smaller scale, but I find it very rewarding to get deep into the nitty-gritty bits of a story and try to make it shine its absolute brightest. It was a good story (outside my prefered genre by a fair margin, but what can you do?) and I don't for a second regret the time spent with the characters. I always knew I liked editing, but this kind of makes me think I might have the stamina for it, I mean professionally. I'd love so much to work with an editor...
The maiden Beta voyage deemed successful, I am now one step closer to being query-ready. I thought I'd have queried by now, this time last year, but there's still a little more I want to tweak. My goal is to get it going by this summer. Fingers crossed!
Teen writer succumbs to the devastating wiles of fiction. Also available: opinions, blabbering, author-worship.
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