Is Your Manuscript Perfect? Striving for Perfection ...

Personally, I think perfection is overrated ... an unachievable goal. Good-enough is plenty good enough for everyday consumption and me. Of course, if someone is going to invest money in your writing, the manuscript better meet their idea of perfection ... or at least be revisable to some semblance there of.

These thoughts popped into my head when I came across a post of Justine Musk's blog on achieving perfection: how to make mistakes + be imperfect like a badass. Musk is a gal with attitude and confronts the idea of wanting perfection and wanting it now ... like with your current draft.

Think she has something important to say about writing here ... even though the insight percipitated in a yoga class. Given some of the people I've seen doing yoga, I can understand where one might get an inferiority complex watching graceful "benders" do their thing.

My version of yoga looks more like a fish flopping around out of water -- no rhyme or reason -- but I mange to get some static exercise in. A helpful activity if you've got a foot of snow outside.

The one graceful "bender" I know is my daughter, a harpist in New York City. Mia was recently interviewed by Columbia Television News. I shared this on Facebook as a proud mommie. I'll share here too. While Mia works for perfection in the area of music, especially on coming in right on the beat, she is just a quick to say "Art never stops". You can never become proficient in everything. The learning process never ends.

I'd add: If your are pushing the boundaries of your skills, you'll always discover something new you must accomplish.

On a Different Promotional Note:

Discovered perhaps a "perfect" way of helping your friends increase their Amazon rankings on LinkedIn without them spending a dime more than they already have.

Tod A. Fonseca blogged on "What is Tagging". What he discusses is a way of increasing your book rankings using Amazon's rankings without having to beg your friends to buy your book. If you've ever bought something from Amazon, you should be able to like and tag books -- go down to the subject areas the book falls in and click the little boxes showing the keywords.

What I'm pulling out of the things I'm reading on promotion: If you click those likes, tags, and say a review is helpful to you, it all helps your book's ranking on Amazon.

Hint: the Amazon page for Troublesome Neighbors. I would appreciate all the likes, tags, and sales I can garner. Thank you for your help. Of course, there's my author's page and my other "books". Did I mention I wouldn't object if you bought my book?

*smile* Do I sound like a needy writer? 

[I don't consider myself an author yet. I'm not perfect enough yet.]

Odd Thoughts from the To-Read Pile

The Read ...

Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas books have been sitting on a dust-gathering to-read pile for months.  [I don't think it's years.]  Don't remember how it happened, but while in the first third of reading another book I liked, I picked up Forever Odd, a thriller/mystery fantasy ... or something ... and finish it instead of the first book.

Did Odd Thomas start out with a clash of action or a hooking sentence?  No.  The opening is a rather gentle description of a desert storm with some back story Koontz doesn't particularly explain.  The storm comes back later to complicate the action ... so it wasn't a useless beginning, but you don't know that when flipping through the first pages.

The story picks up speed on the second page when the ghost of a friend's murdered father appears and guides Odd to the crime scene.  The real villain, a doozy of a psychopath, doesn't appear until about a third of the way into the book ... even though Koontz hints at her existence.  Once, all the players are gathered at a ruined casino, the book creates a great cat and mouse game ... with all the pieces foreshadowed as far as I could see.

So, here's another slow-starting book that builds its world and conflicts brick by brick until the climax gets washed away in the storm.  Masterful.  I may have to read Forever Odd again to study it ... or you may just get me commenting on another book in the series.  Seems I've bought several of them after reading Brother Odd.

Web and Other Stuff ...

Writer Beware linked to a blog by Emily Steel about Marketeers Testing Ads on/in e-books.  Just another example that 1) you lease an e-book and 2) you can't escape corporate cajoling ... enticing ...  luring ... ??? 

On a happier note:  Here's a Holiday present.  Mia Theodoratus playing pieces of her wedding album on TuneCore.  Scroll down for the link if this doesn't take you directly to her.  Yes, I'm the proud mommy.  [If you don't do Facebook, you can Goggle her name and still listen to excepts of her music.]

Wondering about characterization?  Jaime Reed in her blog "Write or Die" has some pointed comments about the place of Bad Boys in our characters' lives.

Progress ...

Have my critiques caught up.  Just have to reread them to get rid of the typos.  I think I wash my hands too much and can't type a thing with them.

Have book-length revisions [Emma and Voices of Ghost Creek] to play with, but I'm dinking around with a short story which "everyone" seems to think is the start of something longer.  Darn it, I'm trying to squeeze it into a short story format ... and I have the words left to do it since additions have increased the length to 2500 words.  Someday, I might even decided on which title to use.  At the moment, I leaning towards:  "The Noticing One", a soft horror story.  Can't wait until my critique group puts me on the hot seat.

Next on my list:  revise a Renna tale.  Hope to have it up before Christmas.

Trivia ...

Everything is slowing down as I slide to the end of the year.

Am happy to retain our middle class status for another year, but see doom down the road.

 

PS...

Must mention Igor Glushkin's artwork on my website.  Why don't you follow the link and flip a few pages.  I like the dark edge he gives my Half-Elven.