{"id":217,"date":"2008-04-21T01:17:13","date_gmt":"2008-04-21T08:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=217"},"modified":"2008-04-21T01:17:13","modified_gmt":"2008-04-21T08:17:13","slug":"first-submission-sent-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/first-submission-sent-off\/","title":{"rendered":"First submission sent off!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yep, that’s right!\u00a0 This past Thursday I sent off the first three chapters plus a synopsis to Tor <\/a>for them to consider!\u00a0 It was all part of the English 318 final.\u00a0 And…I’m not exactly sure how I feel about sending it out just yet…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’m actually kind of counting on them rejecting it, to be honest.\u00a0 Now that I’m at the very end, I can tell that this novel isn’t quite up to par with the kind of stuff that I like to read.\u00a0 It feels a bit like a beginner’s novel, and it really does need a rewrite.<\/p>\n

It would be quite scary if they actually did accept it, because I’d have to send out the manuscript to them ASAP, and it really isn’t ready.\u00a0 Fortunately, the chances of me getting accepted on my first submission are so astronomically small that I think I’m safe.<\/p>\n

Also, I feel like I was rushed to get that stuff out, and I’m not sure how much the quality of the piece was compromised.<\/p>\n

First of all, I wasn’t able to rename the title, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while.<\/p>\n

Second, I had only four hours to write the synopsis.\u00a0 It was very matter-of-fact this-is-what-happens without much selling or propping up in it, and I didn’t have time to edit it extensively.\u00a0 Practically the whole thing was written in passive voice, which won’t help I’m sure.\u00a0 I really have no idea how to write a synopsis.\u00a0 Fortunately, I did keep it under the ten page limit…barely.<\/p>\n

Third, now that I’ve had time to work through the first three chapters, I really do feel that they’re too slow, too mundane, or just…missing something.\u00a0 I don’t really know what, but I feel that the beginning of this book should be much stronger.\u00a0 Perhaps it’s too distant from the main character.\u00a0 Perhaps I’m <\/em>too distant from the main character.\u00a0 The thing that hooked me on this story was the world, not the characters.\u00a0 If anything, Leila was the character who interests me the most–but she doesn’t show up until chapter four.\u00a0 Blegh.<\/p>\n

If you want to read the first two chapters and tell me what you think, you can find them on my Quark livejournal<\/a>.\u00a0 Just send me a friend request, and let me know who you are first.<\/p>\n

Anyways, now that I’m coming up on the end of this novel, things are getting a lot harder than I’d anticipated.\u00a0 I’d hoped to be finished with this chapter by now, but it took longer than I’d anticipated, and I’m at least 1,500 words from the end.\u00a0 After that, I’ll have to write one last chapter to bring everything to a close, so we’re looking at between 6,000 to 10,000 words before this draft is finished.<\/p>\n

Now that I’m here, the ending is not quite as awesome as I thought it would be.\u00a0 In fact, I think that if I’d planned it out better, it would be much stronger than it is.\u00a0 As it is, I feel like I’m throwing things together at the last minute, and it’s not coming together as well as I’d like.\u00a0 For the next novel I write, I’m going to have to figure out a good ending before I write it, and set out with that ending in mind.<\/p>\n

I think I can still do it, though.\u00a0 I’ve got an exam tomorrow (or I can take it Wednesday if I don’t feel ready), and a short one on Tuesday.\u00a0 Wednesday night there’s going to be this awesome CESA party over at Zach’s house, and Thursday my sister Sarah is getting married (!!!).\u00a0 I’ve got cleaning checks on Friday, plus packing, putting stuff in storage, plus the phone and the car to figure out…<\/p>\n

…but I think I can do it and still finish this novel.\u00a0 Exams are really only going to take up the next two days, and everything else shouldn’t be too bad.\u00a0 I’ve already packed most of my stuff, and it’s only going to take a few hours each day to figure everything else out.\u00a0 If I can just focus and crunch on this novel, I can finish it by Friday at midnight, which is the personal deadline I set for myself.<\/p>\n

And then, everything is going to be completely behind me, and I’ll be on the other side of the world!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yep, that’s right!\u00a0 This past Thursday I sent off the first three chapters plus a synopsis to Tor for them to consider!\u00a0 It was all part of the English 318 final.\u00a0 And…I’m not exactly sure how I feel about sending it out just yet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[34,8,4],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-college-life","tag-writing-in-general","tag-the-lost-colony","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-3v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}