{"id":3090,"date":"2006-09-11T05:16:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-11T10:16:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-03-27T21:32:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T02:32:40","slug":"refreshing-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2006\/09\/11\/refreshing-read\/","title":{"rendered":"A Refreshing Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some time back<\/a> I commented on the importance of letting editors be editors and avoiding rejecting your own work for them. It’s one of those cases where I know what to do, but find myself doing the opposite.<\/p>\n

I am taking a distance break from my current novel, having completed the first draft. My brain needs to get away from it for a couple of weeks before diving back in on the rewrites. So, to take advantage of this time, I’m making sure that all the unsold works are back in the pipeline. That includes reviewing some old works that I’d lost confidence in, that needed more work.<\/p>\n

Which brought me to a novel I completed in 2001. It’s an epic a thousand years or so in the future, not at all like the YA’s I’ve been writing recently. It’s been sitting in the rewrite pile (figuratively) since 2004. Why did I put it there? It’s just a matter of confidence. Two publishers looked at it, but it took so long for them to process that I was off doing YA’s by the time it came back, and I just didn’t believe in it anymore.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I picked it up and began reading it again, making minor edits as I went, reflecting improvements in my craft that have happened in the past five years. But these were little things, like removing ‘that’ from a sentence where it was not needed. I read it all day long, and into the night. I kept at it up until 1:30 in the morning because the story grabbed me, and I couldn’t wait to see how it came out! Yes, I’d written it. And I’d lost confidence in it and pre-rejected it myself. But it is a great story.<\/p>\n

So, come Monday morning, a ream-sized cardboard box stuffed with paper is heading off to DAW. There’s no reason in the world I should have sidelined it. And no reason a publisher couldn’t make a bit of cash publishing it.<\/p>\n

Let’s hope I learn my own lessons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some time back I commented on the importance of letting editors be editors and avoiding rejecting your own work for them. It’s one of those cases where I know what to do, but find myself doing the opposite. I am taking a distance break from my current novel, having completed the first draft. My brain… Continue reading A Refreshing Read<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,81],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-NQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3091,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}