August Falling: The Inception
While I was doing the Hachette Manuscript Development Program, then-Hachette publisher Bernadette Foley asked me to think about where my book fit in the market. As research to that question, I asked some of the other participants if they’d read similar books to my own. The wonderful Kim Lock made a number of suggestions, including one popular novel. I bought a swath of books with the intent of seeing how they related to Just Another Week in Suburbia. That was the summer I house-sat my friend’s house to dog-sit their dog, Jet, so I could work on the revision of Just Another Week in Suburbia. While I was off from…
Just Another Week in Suburbia: Revision ~ Part 2
Following the feedback from Bernadette Foley, I read through Just Another Week in Suburbia and identified three key scenes that were issues, and which would need alternatives to help domesticate the story. There were other smaller things things throughout, obviously, and also general revisions that would round out the story. Being at this stage is different to any other feeling you have when you write. When you begin something, it’s a blank document. You fill it. When you revise, you shape what’s there, like your first draft is a big lump of clay, and every revision brings you closer to what you’re trying to create. But revising while writing in…