October project post 22 – Notes on a Novel

My penultimate 24 hours is drawing to a close, and I’ve gone off plan again!

I’m still doing my final read-through of the short stories for sending tomorrow, but that shouldn’t take too long (I hope – I really, really don’t enjoy these and will be very glad to not do short stories for a while) and I’m still working through The Story of One, but the most valuable part of the day was not project plan-related at all, but getting the feedback on the first novel.

It’s always nerve-jangling for me to share my work with people, so getting feedback on it can be quite difficult. However, going through the pages of notes my ‘critical friend’ had prepared was a very positive experience.

As this person represents my target audience, I was very pleased to hear that the story had engaged her, and was the kind of thing she would read (even without doing favours for me!).  There were a few discrepancies or technical matters that weren’t quite right but the story as a whole works.  I now need to sit down with the notes and my manuscript and decide what changes I want to make to alleviate those issues that have been flagged, but I have more confidence in the story now, and can see it having a future.

This is really good news for me – sometimes writing can feel like a vanity project, or too frivolous, and knowing my novel can be enjoyed as a work in its own right is excellent.

Phew – not a waste of a year then!!

As tomorrow afternoon and evening are allocated to the Halloween party, I will either post really early as a result of finishing everything by lunchtime – or really late as I eke a few more hours out when everyone else has gone to bed!

I predict the latter!

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂