Jan 2011
Sending Off "The Silent Goodbye"
29/01/11 13:18 Filed in: Writing
I just pressed "Send".
My heart is still pounding. My breath is short. My fully revised manuscript for The Silent Goodbye, my Phillip Gold mystery novel, is now on its way to the publisher for consideration. In fact, it's probably already there.
Patti finished her detailed review of the new version just before we left for Montreal last weekend. I managed to implement some of her suggestions before we boarded the plane and the remainder this morning. She had a lot of great comments and questions, as I had expected she would, and I think they have made the book even stronger.
I'm nervous right now, to be frank. But I'm also completely satisfied. No, the book is likely not perfect but I think it's damned good. Best thing I've ever written. I don't think I've ever worked so hard on anything in my life nor cared so much about any piece of writing.
I have been very fortunate to have received fabulous input from my several readers and from the publisher himself. I think you have to have some pretty strong confidence in your writing to try to write and publish a novel but you also have to have the humility to accept quality criticism when it comes. I can honestly say that the manuscript is a significantly better work of fiction now that I've incorporated the many suggestions I have received.
Will it be good enough? I don't know. That's for the publisher to decide. I also know that there are dozens of other reasons (other than that the book isn't good enough) that might cause him to pass on publishing this novel. But I can honestly say that this is a manuscript of which I am very proud.
So now I wait. Nervous, excited, expectant. I'll try to work on The Final Curtain, maybe get some reading done, watch a movie or two to pass the time. But in reality it will simply be a period of waiting. And hoping.
I've waited forty-five years so far. What's another couple of weeks? Or even months?
My heart is still pounding. My breath is short. My fully revised manuscript for The Silent Goodbye, my Phillip Gold mystery novel, is now on its way to the publisher for consideration. In fact, it's probably already there.
Patti finished her detailed review of the new version just before we left for Montreal last weekend. I managed to implement some of her suggestions before we boarded the plane and the remainder this morning. She had a lot of great comments and questions, as I had expected she would, and I think they have made the book even stronger.
I'm nervous right now, to be frank. But I'm also completely satisfied. No, the book is likely not perfect but I think it's damned good. Best thing I've ever written. I don't think I've ever worked so hard on anything in my life nor cared so much about any piece of writing.
I have been very fortunate to have received fabulous input from my several readers and from the publisher himself. I think you have to have some pretty strong confidence in your writing to try to write and publish a novel but you also have to have the humility to accept quality criticism when it comes. I can honestly say that the manuscript is a significantly better work of fiction now that I've incorporated the many suggestions I have received.
Will it be good enough? I don't know. That's for the publisher to decide. I also know that there are dozens of other reasons (other than that the book isn't good enough) that might cause him to pass on publishing this novel. But I can honestly say that this is a manuscript of which I am very proud.
So now I wait. Nervous, excited, expectant. I'll try to work on The Final Curtain, maybe get some reading done, watch a movie or two to pass the time. But in reality it will simply be a period of waiting. And hoping.
I've waited forty-five years so far. What's another couple of weeks? Or even months?
Feedback Most Satisfactory
20/01/11 19:41 Filed in: Writing
Patti is still working her way through The Silent
Goodbye, her editing pen at the ready. I've
asked her to try to have her review done by the end
of January and she's promised to make it a priority.
Still, I am well aware that Patti takes time but
produces real quality so I am quite content to wait
for her comments.
That being said, she did have a number of kind words for the manuscript this week. She said she finds it "fast moving", "interesting" and "really good". That's a satisfying little snack of compliments, I must admit.
She had several suggestions that I will have to mull over, though I am already planning to implement at least a couple of them. When you write a novel, you always have scenes or moments that you're not quite comfortable with but you wonder if a reader would respond the same way. In at least one instance, Patti's comment to me captured exactly what I myself had been thinking about that particular scene so I am already working on a resolution to the problem.
It's hard to sit back and watch her read it. I always want to interrupt her to ask her if she likes it, where she is in the story, what she thinks will happen next. I can't imagine what would happen to me if the book were actually to be published. Imagine me sitting in a coffee shop somewhere and spotting a complete stranger reading The Silent Goodbye by Mark Walma! I think I'd freak out.
I had an experience like that on a smaller scale when I was still in school. I was covering the university's football team for the student weekly and one day, while I was walking in downtown Hamilton, I saw someone reading the student newspaper on a park bench. Curious, I wandered over. To my surprise, he was reading my own article on the latest football game. I felt a warm, slightly scared feeling in my stomach. It was like being happy and nauseous at the same time.
I walked very quickly away before he could ruin the moment by scowling, spitting on the paper or, worse, scrunching it up and throwing it in the garbage in disgust.
I guess that's a risk you have to take if you want to be a published author.
That being said, she did have a number of kind words for the manuscript this week. She said she finds it "fast moving", "interesting" and "really good". That's a satisfying little snack of compliments, I must admit.
She had several suggestions that I will have to mull over, though I am already planning to implement at least a couple of them. When you write a novel, you always have scenes or moments that you're not quite comfortable with but you wonder if a reader would respond the same way. In at least one instance, Patti's comment to me captured exactly what I myself had been thinking about that particular scene so I am already working on a resolution to the problem.
It's hard to sit back and watch her read it. I always want to interrupt her to ask her if she likes it, where she is in the story, what she thinks will happen next. I can't imagine what would happen to me if the book were actually to be published. Imagine me sitting in a coffee shop somewhere and spotting a complete stranger reading The Silent Goodbye by Mark Walma! I think I'd freak out.
I had an experience like that on a smaller scale when I was still in school. I was covering the university's football team for the student weekly and one day, while I was walking in downtown Hamilton, I saw someone reading the student newspaper on a park bench. Curious, I wandered over. To my surprise, he was reading my own article on the latest football game. I felt a warm, slightly scared feeling in my stomach. It was like being happy and nauseous at the same time.
I walked very quickly away before he could ruin the moment by scowling, spitting on the paper or, worse, scrunching it up and throwing it in the garbage in disgust.
I guess that's a risk you have to take if you want to be a published author.
Moving on with the Writing
14/01/11 08:19 Filed in: Writing
The manuscript for The Silent Goodbye is
currently on standby as I wait for Patti to finish
her careful review. I am hopeful that she will
complete her task by the end of January so that I can
send it off to the publisher for consideration in
February.
While I wait, I have turned my attention to starting work on my next Phillip Gold mystery, tentatively titled The Final Curtain. The court plot will be an adaptation of the Kevin-Dallanger story that appears in my earlier effort, All That Glisters, while the action plot will involve characters and story lines suggested to me by my nieces, Alex and Katie, this summer. The result is an interesting combination of stories that will revolve around the fates of three young girls.
I'm pleased with the plan and I think the combination of the two stories should provide some good drama and suspense. I discovered this morning, however, that as the two plots were being developed independently I had created three female characters who were just too similar to each other for clarity: blonde, around 14 years of age and bearing names that begin with the letter "M" (Melissa, Mary Kate and Mitsy).
That's gotta change. Since Mitsy is the only name that is non-negotiable, it looks like Melissa will have to become something like Allison and Mary Kate will have to be simplified to Kate.
I don't think my nieces will mind having characters in the novel bearing forms of their names.
Since turning my attentions to this new novel, I've managed to write more than 7,000 words, beginning with what I hope is a very dramatic court scene involving Kevin Dallanger and Phillip Gold. It's been fun to write, blending an existing plot with a new one. I hope to continue to make good progress over the winter.
While I wait, I have turned my attention to starting work on my next Phillip Gold mystery, tentatively titled The Final Curtain. The court plot will be an adaptation of the Kevin-Dallanger story that appears in my earlier effort, All That Glisters, while the action plot will involve characters and story lines suggested to me by my nieces, Alex and Katie, this summer. The result is an interesting combination of stories that will revolve around the fates of three young girls.
I'm pleased with the plan and I think the combination of the two stories should provide some good drama and suspense. I discovered this morning, however, that as the two plots were being developed independently I had created three female characters who were just too similar to each other for clarity: blonde, around 14 years of age and bearing names that begin with the letter "M" (Melissa, Mary Kate and Mitsy).
That's gotta change. Since Mitsy is the only name that is non-negotiable, it looks like Melissa will have to become something like Allison and Mary Kate will have to be simplified to Kate.
I don't think my nieces will mind having characters in the novel bearing forms of their names.
Since turning my attentions to this new novel, I've managed to write more than 7,000 words, beginning with what I hope is a very dramatic court scene involving Kevin Dallanger and Phillip Gold. It's been fun to write, blending an existing plot with a new one. I hope to continue to make good progress over the winter.
Happy Fourth Birthday, Marlee Marie
Under the common calculation, four in dog years equals 28 in people years. Doesn't that mean she should be finding a place of her own and moving out soon? I guess not.
We're a bit lucky that Marlee can usher in her fifth year in her own house this morning. Yesterday, in an attempt to make Oliebolen, the traditional Dutch new-year's doughnut, I managed to start a small but frightening kitchen fire. Fortunately, we all escaped unscathed (as did the house) and the Fredericton firemen were very nice and very helpful. The only damage was to our pot (a lost cause) and my confidence as a chef. Fortunately, on the advice of our culinary-whiz friend Patty, I was able to save my Oliebolen dough by baking it into Oliebread, a safer though not quite as delicious relative of the deep-fried Oliebolen!
So now I turn to Harlan Coben for my reading pleasure. Coben is a favourite of my two brothers-in-law and, a year or so ago, they tried very hard to convince me to get into his books as well. I bought four or five paperbacks back then but could never quite catch the fever. So now I try again with The Woods. It's supposed to be great.
A Good Start to a New Year
I have gotten the new year off right, I think, with a
nice combination of reading, writing and TV watching,
plus time spent with friends and family. I go back to
work tomorrow but, so far, it's been a great start to
2011.
Patti is working her way methodically through the revised manuscript for The Silent Goodbye, my Phillip Gold mystery, court-room drama novel. Patti is one of the most detail-oriented people I've ever met and she combines that valuable characteristic with a keen understanding of the writing process so I'm looking forward to reading her comments. She tells me she's enjoying the novel in its revised version, so that's good, and has said that it seems to move much quicker now. Another real positive.
Meanwhile, I've been doing my Christmas reading. First up was Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, a collection of some of his best New Yorker articles called What the Dog Saw. These are fascinating pieces, filled with interesting information and surprising insights. I like Gladwell's style and admire his ability to take academic/scientific research and make it accessible. I am also impressed with his ability to make compelling connections between seemingly disparate topics (like mammograms and pin-point bombing) in a useful, readable way.
I think, however, that I read the book too quickly: by the time I was two-thirds of the way through, I was beginning to tire of the author's tone and formula for these articles. I should have read one, then set the book aside for a week or so before moving onto the next article. Still, an interesting read.
We've also been catching up on our television watching, after finding DVD sets from the Big Bang Theory, Corner Gas and Fringe under the tree. Big Bang and Corner Gas are tried and true favourites but Fringe is new to me: an updated version of X Files, Fringe was created by J.J. Abrams and offers a stylish, creepy anthology of science fiction/horror plots with what seems to be a neat set of continuing characters. We've only watched the pilot so far but it certainly was strong enough to convince us to watch more.
On the writing side of things, I've converted my former golf blog into a picture-a-day challenge, where I will try to publish to the blog a new photograph every day for a year. I'm pleased with the results so far: check them out at http://wordsbywalma.blogspot.com/.
And, of course, I'm starting to plan the next Phillip Gold novel, which I think will again feature a mystery plot alongside a court-room story. I'll be getting to work on it soon and will keep you posted.
Patti is working her way methodically through the revised manuscript for The Silent Goodbye, my Phillip Gold mystery, court-room drama novel. Patti is one of the most detail-oriented people I've ever met and she combines that valuable characteristic with a keen understanding of the writing process so I'm looking forward to reading her comments. She tells me she's enjoying the novel in its revised version, so that's good, and has said that it seems to move much quicker now. Another real positive.
Meanwhile, I've been doing my Christmas reading. First up was Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, a collection of some of his best New Yorker articles called What the Dog Saw. These are fascinating pieces, filled with interesting information and surprising insights. I like Gladwell's style and admire his ability to take academic/scientific research and make it accessible. I am also impressed with his ability to make compelling connections between seemingly disparate topics (like mammograms and pin-point bombing) in a useful, readable way.
I think, however, that I read the book too quickly: by the time I was two-thirds of the way through, I was beginning to tire of the author's tone and formula for these articles. I should have read one, then set the book aside for a week or so before moving onto the next article. Still, an interesting read.
We've also been catching up on our television watching, after finding DVD sets from the Big Bang Theory, Corner Gas and Fringe under the tree. Big Bang and Corner Gas are tried and true favourites but Fringe is new to me: an updated version of X Files, Fringe was created by J.J. Abrams and offers a stylish, creepy anthology of science fiction/horror plots with what seems to be a neat set of continuing characters. We've only watched the pilot so far but it certainly was strong enough to convince us to watch more.
On the writing side of things, I've converted my former golf blog into a picture-a-day challenge, where I will try to publish to the blog a new photograph every day for a year. I'm pleased with the results so far: check them out at http://wordsbywalma.blogspot.com/.
And, of course, I'm starting to plan the next Phillip Gold novel, which I think will again feature a mystery plot alongside a court-room story. I'll be getting to work on it soon and will keep you posted.