As I type this, quite literally, I’m sitting a way back from my desk (finally, I understand the value of the wireless keyboard!) so that I can supervise the printing of my novel’s manuscript. It’s the first time I’ve printed the whole thing at once, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust my printer to get it right. Neither do my two cats, apparently, because they’re both sitting next to the printer (it’s on a very low table) watching each page come out.
So you can correctly surmise from this that I do have a completed version of my novel. I’m not sure it’s the best version possible – there are so many alternatives – but rather than sit and change it forever and ever, I’m at least going to send this version off to the Vogel contest, since the due date is this Friday. For the first time, I had to figure out what a title page should look like and even write a synopsis – a useful and interesting exercise in itself.
The most important thing I’ve learnt from revising this novel is that when I set my mind to something, I don’t procrastinate half as much as I thought I would. I have squeezed in hours here and there to edit this novel, got my other writing done faster so I’d have extra hours, and been smart about taking the laptop away from the distractions of my desk (and the internet) so that I can focus on “real” writing. It’s quite exciting, and gives me a real high to do it. Nice.
My next job – and don’t tell me this is kind of the wrong way round, I’m aware of that already – is to send it off to a couple of friends who I value as readers and might be able to give me some genuine feedback. My criteria for such friends seems to involve that they must be living overseas – somehow that makes it do-able. After all, I’m a shy writer.
Back to printer duties – it’s only a hundred pages in so far, and I’m not sure my cats are looking as carefully as I would – and then I’m off to the post office.
[...] nearly a month since I lovingly printed my first manuscript to send it out into the world by its little ol’ self. For a couple of weeks I didn’t [...]
[...] might remember that one of the goals I successfully met this year was to submit a novel to the Australian/Vogel Literary Award contest. I did it – albeit a novel that I think needs a lot [...]