Alright summer is here, which means I’m S-L-O-W-I-N-G DOWN career ambitions to spend time with my family. After I semi-finaled in the ACFW contest, I told myself that if I didn’t final, I would take some time this summer to read craft books and fiction, and rethink my approach to my plotting. Alas, I am not a finalist. A blessing. For real.
I got some contest results in from another entry and they were very encouraging – the judges loved my writing, my voice, my characterizations, but had concerns about the structure and plot. Not, like, “you suck at this.” More like, “this could use an additional layer… or story arc X seems hard to pull off.”
In my estimation, I’m over here singing a melody, even working out some harmony, but I’m supposed to be composing a full score . . . that doesn’t suck.
Sage says maybe I’m just bad at synopsis writing. I think writers like to believe that, when, in fact, 98% of the time an overly simple or muddy synopsis is a result of a plain or poorly structured novel.
I feel good about the process though. My beak is out of the egg. I see light out there. And while I might fantasize about some miracle crack of opportunity, I don’t want to end up like the poor chick pictured. This is hard for a reason.
Thank you for the encouragement G. How the reformat going?
I took a few months off after my ACFW shellacking, listened to some good music, and the chapters which I struggled with rewrote themselves. I’m gonna start downloading the new stuff from my brain starting on Father’s Day…hope it doesn’t get scrambled during the reformatting phase.
I think semi-finaled says that you have achieved much indeed!! Take a breather, pray for guidance and endurance, have Sage and your writing buddies inspire you on “infrastructure”, and submit your gem until it reaches the hungry audience that it’s destined for 🙂