Tuesday 29 January 2008

That's so yesterday...

"The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you're trying to build: making it interesting, making it new."

In my bid to win 'Procrastinator of the Year', I stumbled upon, or should that be 'googled upon' the above quote from Neil Gaiman and it seems so apt today. You can read the whole essay at Neil Gaiman's Journal. To all those thinking - God, I read that like 10 years ago - (it was written in 1997) apologies, I'm always ten steps (or years) behind everyone else.

Anyhow - on to my fabulous idea (ahem! - well someone has to big it up and I only have little old me to do that). I'm about a third of the way through redrafting 'The Poisoned Apple'. A tough, but despite my claim of procrastination, rewarding day. I've spent three or so hours struggling with a measly five short paragraphs, couldn't get them to flow right, but now they do... YAY! for persistance.

On the submissions front. Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium (A fellow writer has suggested I change the title back to its working title of 'Lucy Baxter & The Paper Army', as they think the above sounds too Lemony Snicket - comments on that welcome, and I should add I love Lemony Snicket...) - Where was I? Oh yes, Lucy has received 7 rejections so far, out of the 9 sent out. She's a tough cookie though, and isn't broken yet.

10 comments:

Hunter said...

I'm one of those nuts that love rejections that have any kind of a personal note on them. It tickles me when someone reads something I wrote even if they don't want to publish the thing.

You're really getting a lot done this year. I haven't sent out a thing and probably won't this year.

I'm hung up on my quilting.

At least I am still posting to my writing blog. Writing is writing, yes?

Sending continued "publishing" vibes to you.

Best regards.
Darilyn

Angela said...

This is my first visit (from link at BB). UR blog is great.

Congrats getting those 5 paragraphs to work right. I try not to measure my writing progress in hours (that would kill me) or words (doesn't tell me anything since I have to chop most of them and change the rest).

Good luck with your revisions!

Anonymous said...

Very cool site! I'm about to head over to Neil Gaiman's site; I just finished reading Coraline, which I thought was really good. Thanks for the tip :).

Jeff Parish said...

Good news...keep it up!

Cate Gardner said...

Darilyn - thanks for the good wishes and the same sent back to you.

Angela - Thanks for visiting my blog.

Becca - I read Coraline last year and was impressed with it as well.

Jeff - Thanks for visiting again. I've added you to my links list so that I can visit your blog and read of all your successes often.

Angela Ackerman said...

Great looking blog! And I like the man scroll...may I suggest adding Josh Holloway from LOST? Yummm.

Good on you for sticking with thise five paras. I get very frustrated with editing and am a huge procratonator. I never have issue with the drafting, just the revisions. I see all the work needing to be fixed and sort of give up hope.

*Mr Chainsaw interrupts* Wah, wah, Angela--now get back to work.

Sigh. Better get back at it. *glares at alter-ego, Mr Chainsaw*

Mary said...

I really like ‘Lucy Baxter & The Paper Army’. It arouses curiosity. ‘Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium’ seems to give more away.

Cate Gardner said...

Thanks Angela - Josh Holloway is cute, ditto Matthew Fox.

Thanks for your comment Mary. I may well revert back to the original title.

Sophie Playle said...

Hello there. Just thought I'd thank you for visiting my blog the other day. I don't brose around blogger as much as I should so it's nice to meet new people! You seem like an interesting writer, so I hope you don't mind me adding you to my links!

I'd aggree that "Lucy Baxter & The Paper Army" sounds like a better title. The word 'Evil' in any title can seem a little dramatic, and the idea of a paper army is much more interesting and unique.

Good luck with your submission! I'm so glad you haven't been disheartened! I always remind myself how many times Harry Potter was rejected before it was published. Bet those fools are kicking themselves now! Ha ha!

Cate Gardner said...

Hi Capulet, thank you for journey over to my blog. Thank you for adding me to your links list - I've added you to mine. (Love the title of your blog).

I'm playing with some new titles at the moment.

Cate :)