Ok, so the end of another crazy ass week approaches. Except for the pita that work has been with this migration it’s been pretty good. Well, that and my rejections, but I’ve stopped worrying about that. Printed out my reject emails and posted them on the wall at work. Inspiration at its best, I suppose.
Chapter 1 has been reworked again. It’s shorter and mostly rearranged as opposed to rewritten. Some of the backstory has been removed, but I’ve reworked a lot of it back into the story elsewhere. Seriously, Chapter 1 has been the bane of my existence. The funniest thing? I’m right back where I started. Last year when I first started writing it – I had a few paragraphs of Abby and the *bam*, the incubus walks in the door. And then I made the mistake of showing people and I got a lot of – we need to know what she looks like and what her name is and more information on x, etc. And so I started adding – a mirror, a nametag, restarting the story up in her bedroom, restarting the story with extra people. Overall, it just became a mess. So this week I did what I should have all along – LISTENED to myself. So we’re back to the basics. Abby in the bookstore. It’s raining. Brystion walks in and off we go.
It just occurred to me how very awkward that first chapter is compared to the rest of the book. It will be interesting to see if this latest reworking will make any difference with the agents, or if it makes the story any stronger.
In the meantime, I will become a bit of a contest whore – not because I really think it’s going to get me anything major (although sometimes if you final, an editor or agent gets to read it), but I wouldn’t mind getting a little more feedback.