Editor's Choice

Well, Eugene and I came home after doing some shopping about an hour ago. (We bought some items off our registries at Crate and Barrel and Bed, Bath, and Beyond.) I checked my e-mail and found out that the first chapter of my fantasy novel has been selected as an Editor's Choice. Basically, what that means is that one of the professional writers/editors associated with the workshop is going to post a review of my chapter in the next newsletter. Some workshop members look on this as a sign of distinction, but what I think it means is that the editor has something to say about the chapter that he/she thinks will be useful to the workshop as a whole. So that probably means there are some aspects of the chapter that need improvement. Heck, I know it needs improvement, and thanks to the crits I've already received, I know there's too much of an info-dump in the beginning, the end needs work, etc. I wonder if the editor will go beyond that and point out other things as well. It's a little nerve-wracking, the idea that this review will be sent out to hundreds of people. I've done face-to-face workshops before, but those were with smaller groups of people. I guess I should be honest; deep down, I'm still the perfectionist I've always been, and I want my work to be as good as I can make it before I show it to other people. But in the long run, the critting will make my work stronger. Hopefully, the crit will be constructive and teach me something. And there are a couple of advantages to having my chapter be reviewed in the newsletter; it may encourage more people to read/review my work (yes, I know I gripe about my crit workload now, but I've lost some of my regulars and could use some fresh sets of eyes), and it gets my name out to a lot of people in the SF field. Any publicity is good publicity, right?

In other writing news, the second chapter of Day is going slowly. I've written three scenes with three of the main characters; now I need the scenes for Luke and Jenna. I'm changing some things about Luke's character, so I'm throwing out his entire scene and starting from scratch. Once I figure out what to do with his scene, I should be able to make some progress. I don't plan to do more than tweak Jenna's scene, but knowing me, once I read it, I'll decide I should throw that out too and write it all over again. I must learn to stop doing that. ;)

In non-writing news, there's not much to report. Eugene and I are making plans for Thanksgiving weekend. We're spending it with his family this year, since my dad is still recovering from surgery. Next Friday, we're having our annual Thanksgiving get-together with Adam and Natalie, friends of ours from the East Coast. They were in our wedding, so we'll show them the proofs. We're also starting to plan our holiday baking extraganza and getting ready for the party we're throwing in a couple of weeks. Busy, busy, busy, but it should be a fun busy.

And now I should really get writing busy and figure out what to do with Luke. Good night, everybody!