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Friday, September 21, 2012

Writing is Rewriting

I tend to write books, and writing the book for me, at least, is the easy part. The hard part? Rewriting!

Writing is rewriting as the saying goes. So I wrote a novel for a #soopersekritproject that I’m not allowed to tell anyone about yet (but when I can, I’ll shout it from the rooftops!).

 My WIP is entitled Enslaved, which is Book One in The Enslaved Trilogy, which already has an offer on it from a publisher. (Can’t tell you which of the Big 6 it is yet, oh hey I dropped a hint, oops).

Anyhoo… I wrote the book, sent it to an author and a reader to beta-read, got a thumbs up from them both, and sent it to my agent and got back 3 pages of revisions before I can hand it in to my editor.
Shoshanna Evers

Oh, and the book is due in 10 days.

HELP.

My first instinct when I got the revision notes was to freak out, possibly because my agent wrote in all caps DON’T FREAK OUT at the top of the email. Then I read through them and got a bit depressed, because I realized that all of her notes are spot on and are going to make my book better.

So now I have ten days to make some major revisions, which mainly involve adding things that I often leave out since I’m used to writing bare-bones and short. I need to get in the characters’ heads more and give them backgrounds that seep into their present story. Doable. I can do it. Yes I can!

 But rewriting the opening? Changing a major plot point? Oh my goodness. Plus the fact that I need to explain some of the BDSM terms and situations in a way that doesn’t make it feel like I’m explaining them, like what does wearing a lover’s collar mean to a submissive….eh, I can do that.

But changing the opening? HELP! I have ten days. I want to start now. But my agent (the lovely Courtney Miller-Callihan of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates – yes! Dan Brown’s agency!) told me to sleep on it and call her in the morning.

Like I’ll be able to sleep tonight. LOL Wish me luck folks, I’m gonna need it.

xoxo Shoshanna
(This post was originally written for www.FlirtyAuthorBitches.com)