Since my last entry, I've finished: The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais. Killing Time by Linda Howard. Scenes of Passion by Suzanne Brockman.
Yesterday was a big day! My short story, "Relationships" is officially published and up for sale at The Wild Rose Press.
I also signed a contract with Cerridwen Press for my first full-length novel.
That was a heck of a lot better than getting the score sheets from a contest where one judge loved Rescued Hearts and another one thought it was mediocre. All the more frustrating because if there had been one more point between the two scores, it would have had a third read, and I might have more confidence in deciding which opinion should carry more weight. Ego notwithstanding, it's wrong to assume that the people who love my stuff are "right" and everyone else is clueless. I'll take their comments and see if I can apply the ones that make sense before I send off any more queries.
Now, it's a matter of waiting, and learning more about the e-publishing realm. I will be interested in following the process and working with an editor on a much longer piece of work. I'm sure it's not going to be the same as working on a short story. As a 'seat of the pants' grammarian, I have already learned that there are labels for things I do because Miss Cook and Mr. Holtby drilled them into my head. I'm still comma challenged from time to time, and despite my "Relationships" editor's attempts to get me to see it, I couldn't grasp any difference between:
"…he crouched on the floor where the girls had settled into their blanket cocoons." versus:
"…he crouched on the floor, where the girls had settled into their blanket cocoons."
One's a restrictive clause, I'm told, but to me, the meaning is clear enough either way.
You can read a excerpt of "Relationships" on my website.
7 comments:
Hey Terry! Great blog!
WTG on the contract! Do you have a release date? Congrats!
No release date yet. The contract has to be signed on their end, and who knows what else they do before my editor gets the green light to start editing.
I'm sure I'll post updates here as I navigate the process.
Thanks, Stacy. Looking forward to the entire process.
Don't worry, Terry. I suffer from the same problem but maybe in reverse. I actually find myself putting in way to many commas. I think whenever I pause to think my fingers automatically add a comma.
Carole Ann -
Sometimes I think that's a fair way to decide when commas are appropriate -- as long as you're writing as you'd be speaking or reading and the commas come at natural pauses.
Now, if I could only get my fingers to stop typing "just"!
I have a problem with commas, too. I don't use them enough usually and I'll go back and read and decide it needs one. Your sentence looks fine to me without it...
Congrats on your contract. As far as the judging goes, what I try to tell myself is that not everyone who reads my book will love it and some people who don't read it would have loved it. :))
Grammar has rules for commas? Isn't that what the wiggly green lines in Word are for?
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