I’m putting my NaNo novel, The Lazarus Kiss, to simmer for a few months. This round of edits is done and I’ve cut it from 102,718 words to a very tight 85866 words. I did submit the first 30 pages to Bloody Words for a manuscript evaluation – even those 30 pages have changed since I sent them in. Plus I picked out the two scenes to take to the Loyalist workshop in July – so it’s not as if I won’t be working on it but I’ll give the bulk of it a rest till September. I also hope to have an agent pitch at Bloody Words – if the agent wants to see the first 100 pages they are ready to go.
This round of edits involved word search for lazy phrases ‘well, I guess …’ stuff like that. Making action more direct: ‘he felt his anger get the better of him’ becomes ‘anger got the better of him’ in context we know whose anger – ‘he felt’ merely delays the action. Plus the words I most mistype – except, expect – words that spell check would never pick up .
I’m looking forward to Bloody Words. It’s been a few years since I attended – mainly because it isn’t always in Toronto. Part of the package is an awesome goodie bag brimming with papers backs and hard covers that sometimes equals the cost of the registration. There are panels and speakers that take in all areas of writing from how to poison, how to research, how an arrest happens & what comes next once arrested, how to self-publish, how to eBook, marketing, how to approach publishers or agents – most apply, as far as I can tell, to all types of writing – mystery, horror, memoir, even literary fiction.
May 2022 addendum: Agent at Bloody Words found the plot of Lazarus confusing & it wasn’t clear to her who the market could possibly be – whatever. I blogged it here – search for Lazarus Kiss.
TOpoet 