So that’s me. A whole new set of revisions done. It is so eerie to ponder all these small details. I can’t help but thinking of the reviewers that will possibly tear all this hard work apart.

But reviewers are necessary. It’s almost unreal, because thinking of them makes me realize that  this is really happening and soon a real book with real pages with my name at the top will be in the hands of readers. Those words I was pondering over all week.

Tonight, I only have one word. Wow!

(I wrote a blog at Musetracks tonight on writing settings. Just click on the sidebar link to find it!)

Bright Blessings

I don’t know why I’m thinking about this tonight, maybe because stuff happened that left me a little sad, but I can’t help thinking about that idea from Stephen Covey about stimulus and response.

That our integrity, how our life shapes up is determined in that small gap between stimulus and response.

My alarm ring at 5 am, I have a choice, get up to do my edits or sleep an extra two hours. My boys are running wild in the house, I can either start shouting at them or take a deep breath and move to another room for 5 minutes to regroup.

Big changes in our life are sometimes created in that tiny sliver of time. Which choice we make depends on our character and sometimes chosing the harder side also builds up our character.

At some point, we stop reacting to events without thought and chose the path towards our life’s big picture. It’s not easy, but it gets easier and small pain of today go away for authentic life blessings of tomorrow.

Wrote 300 words to Ancient Whispers today, a small new scene for my revision. And I addressed 14 editor’s comments, the easy ones. 35 to go!

Blessed Be.

Winter morning by =Kechake on deviantART

Well here I am. Way too tired to fire up the laptop.
So I’m trying to blog directly from my iPhone.
But they are done, first revisions of Ancient Whispers are now out to my editor.

In a way, they were not easy. Partly because this was my first manuscript and I know there was so much that was wrong with it. I notice how different the earlier writing appears to me now. Not really bad, but not me somehow.

And the comments were made by one editor but because of a change in staff at Dorchester, the manuscript will now be edited by the senior editor. So maybe another reason to make me feel even more nervous.

But it’s done. Of course I don’t think it’s perfect but at this point, I don’t know what else to do. Cut a good 15,000 words and added about 9,000 words to the original version.

Time to relax for a micro second and think about the sequel!

Another day spent revising my manuscript.

I’ve read and reread my manuscript so much now that it is both extremely boring and also doesn’t make any sense anymore.

I am not afraid of writing what I am scared of. That’s almost necessary in a way. I am also not afraid of success (n0, seriously!). But I am afraid. And I am afraid of the reception the book will get.

I’m the type of person who wants everyone happy. So I want everyone to love my book. And I know very well how impossible this it. So I keep reading reviews at sites like Dear Author and Smart Bitches and everytime a reviewer mention something, say that heroine was silly, I worry that they will say the same about mine.

My head is full of reviewers critiques, all negatives, all adapted to my book. I have a lot of imagination after all. It’s quite easy to see all those reviewers canning my book.

My heroine is weak. That’s whay I heard from contest judges and critique group. And yes, from my editor (although my editor saw her nurturing side and knew it could be fixed. But it’s harder to portrait a heroine that is more “real” (IMO) when all the paranormal romance out there show kick-ass girls taking on to save the world.

So now I am obsessively looking for places  to change where yes Lily is too weak. She’s definitely more of a Twilight Bella then a Lara Croft. But I like her that way

In the end, I don’t know. I just have to plod along, make it the best I can and face the reviews when they come. Lucky for me, it’s still a long way away!