So this months project has been the youth fantasy adventure. Kind of Harry Potter meets The Mummy with a twist of Snow White, lol. Basically A king and queen finally have a child. The sorcer knows that the only way for him to become ruler is to kill the child so he has a henchman do the deed. Henchman instead take the boy across the sea and leaves him in a different kingdom. Boy is found by another orphan 12 years older than he is and raised to survive a brutal kingdom. They become the Guild of Theives as they take in other lost orphans and save them from bad lives. The one day the older one disappears, kidnapped by the sorcerer as word of his orphan rescue gets back to the sorcerer. That is where the book starts Our young prince is 14. He has no idea he is a prince and can't remember a thing. His mentor has figured it out but not told him for his safety and vanished besides. So the boy along with a gypsy girl go on a search to find the mentor.
I like the book. I see the kids in my head. I see their adventures with other magical things and perilous environments. But I am only 3300 words in. Yes I know the date. I think I have let myself be bogged by the idea of the audience. I have been so stuck on trying to keep it simpler than normal that the words just haven't flowed. A dear friend reminded me that my audience is much smarter than I seem to be thinking and that i don't need to "dumb it down". They are capable kids these days and used to bigger books. The shortest Harry Potter was over 76k words. I need to stop worrying about simplicity and instead let the story flow. Let my normal details flow, let the relationships build and just stop worrying. So that is what I am going to do. Tomorrow i tackle this book anew. From the top. No simplification. Just true Lila voice! Wish me luck.
2 comments:
One thing I've learned is that you can literally edit a book to death. Always a word here or there to change, a comma or semi-colon here or maybe there or maybe not at all, blah blah.
I finished my first fiction manuscript (commercial fiction thriller) a few weeks ago--revisions, editing, etc.
Now comes the absolute root canal-like agony of querying literary agents.
For my non-fiction business books, I had both a partner and professionals at the (ad) agency to steer us through everything, handle the contracts, usage rights, etc.
Now I'm retired and have nobody so time to query.
Problem is, the book's theme is decidedly conservative and the literary agency world is decidedly liberal--far left liberal.
Will probably have me grumpy as hell for the rest of the year. (grin)
Sorry for not reading/commenting for the past few months since our last exchange of e-mails. I literally hibernated to finish up this project.
Best regards,
JD
You are wonderful!! Query letters suck! I hate them. I loath them. I re-write them often, lol. I think there is always an agent out there for every book, the trick is finding them. I let myself be sucked in by an agent who was a horrible fit for me and low and behold there is no book out yet. I think that is because the book wasn't quite right and I hadn't found my strength. At least that's what I tell myself as I fight through. Heh. I am trying not to over think. I can't seem to help it though. I wish I could turn that off, lol.
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