Dress - vintage, thrifted
Boater - Halo, bought from Two Squirrels Vintage in Christchurch
Bg - vintage, from Retropolitan
Shoes - yep, Zara again
Belt - thrifted
I heard back from my agent today - she has finished reading the draft and sent me her immediate reactions, and I'm so, so glad and grateful to have someone else's perspective on it. I can never emphasise enough the importance of detached and constructive criticism, and I love receiving it. With this book I have felt a bit like a pot plant sitting on top of the toilet cistern in someone's dark and tiny bathroom, struggling to catch every little drop of water and splash of sunlight that I can. Now someone has thrown open the windows and given me a big jug of water, and I feel like I can grow again. I don't know why I chose a toilet cistern as part of that simile - it's a little random. But I suppose I associate dying plants with the loo, at least in our house.
So - I have a much clearer path as I prepare for (hopefully) a final draft of the book. It has been through so many incarnations, this Difficult Second Novel of mine. The entire plot has changed shape three times. Characters have been introduced and eliminated. As it is now, I am relatively happy with the overall shape of it, but it has suffered from my lack of perspective - I need to get down on my hands and knees and really work through all the logistic and thematic details. At a leisurely pace. And after a much-needed couple of months completely away from it, I think. I feel like the last few chapters need to be paced out and lengthened so that they a) make more sense and b) slow down. Of course, I would be thrilled if my agent had written back with solely positive comments, saying "OMG THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING BOOK EVAH," but I knew that, although it has moments of awesome, it still needs more work. It's good to hear that, and it's good to hear it coming from someone else rather than from the confused and myopic ramblings of my own little mind. I don't want to work on the book straight away, but when I do return to it in a few weeks' time, I'm going to work with a hard copy and a vicious red pen.
In other news, Mink is doing amazingly well. He is eating, drinking and powdering his nose as normal, and has been remarkably brave in exploring the apartment. He has a constant purr going, and seems very happy. My brave little soldier.
I received the most gorgeous swap package yesterday from Carys of La Ville Inconnue - a daily read of mine! She sent me the most amazing large satchel, which is going to become my new laptop bag, an amazing navy and tan bag, two floral skirts and a navy bow blouse that I know I am going to wear to death. Thank you so much, Carys.
P.S. I need to change my Blogger settings to my new time-zone, and I can't figure it out! Can anyone tell me how? Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment