Oh, my heart.

Today was a productive writing day. I worked for six hours and came out with a six-page scene that I am very pleased with. I'm sure it can still use some work, but at this point, I don't see myself needing to put more than another hour into it. (No, I'm not generally a fast writer. I revise 2.5 billion times in a week before I'll consider a chapter finished and move on to the next. In general, when I'm working hard at it, I finish about ten pages in a week. They are good, well-revised pages, but only ten pages nonetheless. But this week is going to be more!!)

Then, in the shower, I was pondering and came up with some simplified and better life histories for two of my characters. I called my husband into the bathroom and explained my new ideas. He seemed confused about how they could possibly be as revolutionary as I think they are because the changes are so subtle.

But I am SO stoked about all of it. And I never use the word "stoked," so you know it must be true. I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight.

Query letter.

One of my assignments this week was to write a query letter for my current manuscript. Yes, I do mean the manuscript that I've only been working on for one month and that is nowhere near completion.

I wrote my first query letter for FADED AS MY JEANS as a class assignment in February 2005. Then I wrote a new one for another assignment in May 2005. As the months went on, I ended up writing so many versions that I can't even remember them all. It wasn't until January 2006 (for yet another assignment) that I finally made the final version that went out to agents. It was a good letter and I got a lot of response from agents with it. (So far, I haven't had an offer for representation, but that little letter got me as far as it could.)

It was kind of exciting to write my letter today. It needs work, of course, and I anticipate that it will go through lots of changes in the next few months. But writing it was good for me. It gave me the feeling that this is really happening. That I might really be able to do something with this character and this story that someone will want to buy.

Critiques

I've had a lot of positive responses from my classmates (and instructor) for my last two chapters. I'm telling you, reading critiques like these is so addictive... like CRACK! I keep logging back in to see if anyone else has left more feedback for me. It's sort of [descriptive word] that other people's opinions have the power to either suck the joy out of me or motivate me like this. I mean, this is coming out almost exactly like the project I envisioned. I always had faith in it. But when the crits from my classmates were somewhat skeptical veering toward positive and my instructor's were all negative, I started having doubts.

Now that everyone seems to be feeling what I was feeling from the start, I'm high as a cliche.

Or something.

I think it's very revealing. I don't like it because I wish I had this confidence on my own. I wish that other people's negativity didn't drag me down so absolutely.

But on the positive side, YAY.

The end.

Split personality??

Last night in the class chat, my instructor said, "Mindi, you're novel is looking really good. Your characters and plot are so unique and blah blah blah." I was like, "What with the who now?"

Actually, I really said, "Thank you."

Only two weeks ago she suggested that I scrap the whole thing.

WTF?

Not all doom and gloom.

One thing I've learned about the class I'm taking is that it isn't a complete waste of time. Well, isn't that negative? :-D

Despite my various frustrations, the fact is that I am writing... and I'm enjoying it. I put in 30 hours last week. Five of those were on Sunday - a day I usually take off - because I was pushing to meet a goal. Without the class, I would have just given up for the week and hoped that the next would would be better. But I had a deadline and I was determined to meet it.

I haven't received instructor feedback for two weeks because last week I was too frustrated/angry/unmotivated to turn anything in. And I haven't received anything back from her this week yet. It will probably come later today.

Not getting instructor feedback has been extremely benficial to me, as stupid as that sounds. I got so tired of having my concept ripped apart and having her tell me to change it into something I don't want it to be. It made me not want to write at all.

But my classmates have been really, really supportive. Some of them have sent me private messages telling me not to give up on Seth (my MC) because they think I'm doing a great job with him. (I never intended to give up on him, but they were all there for the chat when the instructor told me to do so.) My feedback this week from all of them was very nice. Compliments were there, but also thoughtful suggestions of things to work on. This is what I need. People who encourage me to keep going and let me know what I'm doing right, but who also point out the flaws as they see them. My instructor could stand to take a lesson from us supposed amateurs.