This was a watershed week of submissions for me.
I have spent most of the year reworking and editing a number of promising writing pieces, and working out whether some earlier projects are short stories, picture books or novels. Sometimes I don’t know in the early drafts what the final form will be.
Each piece chooses its destiny, as I write and rewrite. I play, experiment and do radical things when it just doesn’t seem to be working but the story tells me it must be told.
Then there are some other tips I have picked up during the year like to, remove telling not showing from my work through avoiding ‘thought verbs.’
The other thing that’s happened is now that so many rules have been absorbed about writing I pick and choose which ones to follow. This is based on which ones improve my writing. Sometimes I even reverse a rule. I will share more about that one day.
The most enjoyable part of editing is reading my pieces loud to find the musicality and poetry. I realise I love things that have a beautiful sounding and flowing sentence, but it must also be purposeful. My family often hear me in my room doing this and wonder who I am talking to. ‘Just editing’ I say afterwards.
So with all of these things now happening, I reworked some stories I have always wanted to tell, and sent three completed pieces off. All three were reworked pieces that I have filed away to keep working on and had rediscovered.
If they don’t place in the competitions, and even if they do, I will then begin submitting to other places like publishers. There are so many competitions and not all of them result in publication. The stories feel just right to me. They still make me laugh or cry.
When I write I go looking for magic sentences, engaging characters, and use setting as a character when I can.
Now onto some much longer pieces, to apply the same process!
As well as editing and reworking, I do keep on writing new pieces. But my patience for the time a work might take to come to fruition has grown. Especially when the difficulties with it that niggle at me feel solved!
Over and out, off to do more writing.
Gumboootspearlz 