Book tours and good feedback rock!

I just gave my critique partner the kind of response I hope to get someday from someone doing a critical review of my stuff.  Her new book is fabulous!  I loved it!  It really blew me away how she is developing as a writer.

Don't we all yearn for that moment that someone says,"OMG!  Your stuff is awesome!"  Sure beats questioning yourself every other day if you are in the right line of work. 

There were of course minor flaws, but that is why we go through the process of having someone else putting their eyes on our work.  Sometimes you go through your WIP so often you start having trouble seeing the mistakes or typos.  Overall the work she sent me was pretty clean, and just needs very minor repairs to be ready for a wider beta audience, if not outright release for an agent.  The stuff I pointed out for her would likely not even be noticed by a lot of readers, but I wanted to be thorough.

The Ultimate Unsatisfying Ending

So I’m on alert last night and as I often do on alert I found an offbeat movie to watch.  It’s a stranger than normal movie with a combination of subtitles and English speaking parts and a lot of dialogue.  The main characters are two broken people who find each other and start to fall in love despite their shitty lives, but of course they are lying to each other and keeping dark secrets.  ***SPOILER ALERT*** I give away the ending and the movie title at the bottom.  But really you don’t want to waste your time on this one. 

It’s a great writing tactic to let the reader/watcher know what a character should do, but is too stupid or hard-headed to do and you are hoping beyond hope that they will pull their head out and do the right thing.  The writer has two ways to go with this ultimately.  You can give the satisfying finish where they actually end up finally making the right choice and or you can go the crappy way and have it go horribly wrong when they can’t or won’t make the right decision. 

I'm Baaaaack!

I’m in a good place right now.   I finished Air War College a few weeks ago, and then my father-in-law took all his kids and grandkids (including me) to Disney World for a week.  We had a wonderful time together despite the fact that it rained every day.  We all got along; nobody got hurt or sick or sunburned.  Just so happened to be a Star Wars Weekend also, and for anyone that knows me or my family that was a big deal.  Only downside was my boys’s aggravation with the sporadic internet in our room.  We also went to Universal Studios for a day and the Harry Potter castle ride is probably the best ride I’ve ever been on.  All-in-all an awesome trip! 

A small jump for joy!

The weight has lifted.  I am complete with Air War College as of yesterday.  I feel lighter and my mood is noticeably better.  But...but..now I have no excuses to stop me from writing.  I need to get back in the writing saddle again, but I've been absent for so long that I have to find the horse and put the saddle on it.  I was so looking forward to this moment, but once it arrived I felt of barely perceptible pang of fear... just enough that I was able to notice it, and it surprised me.

I opened up my manuscript a few days ago when I had finished my last active part in the process (I had to wait for my mentor to approve and send in my self-assessment), and started to muddle through it.  I was on fire when I had last touched it and had made some really big strides in the revision, not only with correcting some syntax and tagging issues, but with a few concepts that I wanted to tweak.  I knew I was on my game, and it was thrilling to understand where I was at and where I needed to go to finish the last big revision.