Literary Progress

My Promiscuous Mode query has been rewritten. Then I had to write it again to get rid of passive voice sentences. Now it conforms to what "Miss Snark" said to do. Since I wasn't getting anywhere with the other one, it can't hurt and may help. It's going out to two agents tomorrow.

I'm tearing apart the beginning of World of Mirrors one more time to get rid of 5 pages that are O.K. but are wrong for this book. After a fairly grim prologue we get a scene that seems definitely like women's fiction, not suspense. Goodbye, adios, adieu. One can construct the most consummate sentences but if they don't belong in the book then they must go. One of many writer's laments. Maybe those sentences weren't even consummate.

Once I heard the writer Tim O' Brien talk about slaving and slaving to get a perfect sentence. More work, more sweat, more sentences and pretty soon, voila, the pefect paragraph. Hours and hours and even days of effort and pretty soon the chapter is completed. Read the chapter. Admire it. Alas, it's a wonderful chapter, but it doesn't belong in this book. O'Brien (The Things They Carried) is a powerful writer, and if he does that, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

Now I really really need to update my web site. And finish Festival Madness. And sell a bunch of stuff on Ebay. And spend quality time with the cats. Which do you think I'll do first?

Meow.