"Un-Decided" by Gilad
Profound apologies once more.
If you are a regular follower of this site, then I do sincerely apologise for the severe lack of absence as of late. There are many reasons for this, but none worthy of forgiveness. However, I shall now present you with the third and final part of “The Professional Opinion”. When I wrote it, I believed every word. But something happened before I got around to publishing this, contributing to the delay. It changed my views once more, but this original article shows where my mind was at the time…
…stay tuned for my complete backwards resolve…
Following on from Part 2: The Feedback, I thought it only fair that I share what decisions I’ve made based on the feedback I received. I think this may also shed some more light on what I said in that previous post, in case you were thinking of using such services yourself.
I guess my biggest fear regarding my manuscript was that it was all a big pile of [insert profanity here], and that I shouldn’t be let near anything capable of turning the words in my head into words on a distributable medium. This is a factor in why I chose the cheaper “quick review”, as I thought (and still do think) that if this was the case, it would be picked up in a few hundred words, let alone a few thousand.
In this regard, the review served me well. My editor cited that talent was evident, and while he opinioned that my writing could be better, he noted where it was letting me down and there was nothing that I disagreed with or what was otherwise a showstopper.
Though he didn’t critique the synopsis, he had read it and here too there was no major drama. As much as a one page synopsis can reveal about a book, there was nothing bad he could say about it and even had a positive remark about my “twist” on a very tried and tested genre.
It is because of this feeback mentioned so far that I ended my last post saying that if I were to save up a grand or two, I wouldn’t use it on a full manuscript review. The story I’ve told I can’t imagine telling any differently, and with the editor noting no apparent problem with my cast of characters, I’m confident about the overall plot and pacing. So what would I spend that money on? A line-editor.
I’ll explain that a bit more in a minute, for that hyperthetical decision is based on all of the feedback I received. The main conculsion of the report was that due to the changed publishing world in which we now live, where even published authors are finding it hard to get published again, I’d find it hard to get an agent. Though he didn’t state the exact reason why, he implied it was due to my use of language which he’d previously commented on–and with which I agreed.
Agreeing with his criticism of my writing has made life a lot easier. Of course I want to be the best writer I can be, and so I will go through my manuscript one more time and finely tune it, to try and iron out those moments of wrinkled writing.
Then I intend to send it to a line-editor, to pick up on all those tiny mistakes that I’ve missed on every single draft. And then I’m going to self-publish my book.
Am I ever going to try sending to agents? I might, but if I do it won’t be because it’s a priority and I certainly won’t be resting any hopes on it. If anything it’ll probably be to get that long sought-for rejection letter.
And so, for now, I leave you with my intention: No Shelter From Darkness. Coming early 2012.
UR ALIVE!!!
Ok maybe not
LOL I’m still here, just keeping a low profile while I’m horrendously busy and trying, unsuccessfully, to keep on top of things. I’m not dead though