My manuscript as a patchwork quilt
As of right now, my manuscript reminds me of a patchwork quilt I tried to make years ago. Some pieces aren’t quite right but others look perfectly stitched in. I can’t say that the quilt ever looked good enough to show to anyone but it was warm and cozy.
The manuscript will go on display one day as a completed work. I still have several months, and many hours of work left to do. As I’ve worked on it, I’ve mended tattered edges, cut out ragged pieces, and repaired some bad prose. I killed off a character, changed another one, and transformed the book a bit.
Unlike that failed quilt—I never was good at math and quilts require math to do them well—this manuscript is looking better. Thank goodness, writing doesn’t require math skills.
To my agent I say, don’t worry ‘tis a far, far better thing I do the book is better and when I send it to you I’m sure you will sell it.
Posted on September 28, 2009, in My books, Writer, Writing and tagged Author, Beads, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Humor, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Doggonedmysteries 
That’s the spirit that will get you through the long hours of writing, tweaking, and generally carrying on in a world of your making. The quilt analogy is very real, though not being a number person too, I used to compare it to a crazy quilt. No math, but lot’s of crazy making times interspersed with heavenly times when the words just flow.
I haven’t reached the tweaking point yet, but soon. 😉
Now just hold on a doggone minute, Tweaking is my job.
No, it’s my book…you critique it and I tweak it. 😉
I’ve always thought of my rough drafts that way because I tend to skip all over the place writing whatever scene intrigues me most. If I get enough powerful scenes that way it helps drive the story all the way through instead of having a strong beginning that gradually peters out towards the end.
You write like someone I know… And I bet he’s reading this about now.
I skip around once in while, but not too often. I seem to have a more linear way of thinking which could be part of my problem. Maybe if I skipped around more the scenes would come to me faster.
No tweaking yet!!!! You’ve done a ton of tweaking – you offed a non-functioning character – if that isn’t tweaking I don’t know what is!!! Actually, you may be right – that wasn’t tweaking, that was TWEAKING!
To me tweaking means the final clean up and any minor adjustments the book needs before sending it off in the best I can do form–not the rewrites that get me there. 😉