24 June 2008

Reviews and Rewrites

Since my first book released last week, I've gotten two reviews—one from Elisa Rolle and one from Mrs. Giggles. I'm glad I have a thick skin. I'm an actor; I'm very good at handling rejection and criticism. Neither review was glowing, but neither panned it completely. Of course, Mrs. Giggles was less positive but that's to be expected. She is known for snark and she does it well. Both reviews had one criticism in common and I agree with it: the book starts slowly. ::shrug:: I'm okay with that. It was a lot of detail and description at the top. Visual world-building before leaping into the action. Some people like that and some don't. Usually I'm in the don't. Funny how that happened, eh? Irony. It's good for the blood. ;)

Right now I'm working on expanding a novella that my editor liked but wanted more of. Higher stakes, more back-story. I'm glad she didn't take it as is (or at this point as was). I initially wrote it for an anthology submission with a 25,000-word limit. These boys deserve more story than that and while I was pleased with the initial version, I think the expanded one will be much better. Here are pics of actors I'd cast were I casting. Pretty boys, no?


Jamie Bell

and Simon Woods

2 comments:

Jane said...

Jamie has grown up a lot since Billy Elliot. Not familiar with Simon Woods.

Maia Strong said...

I discovered Simon Woods in the mini-series Cranford on PBS. Then I realized he was also in the prodcution of Pride & Prejudice that starred Kiera Knightly. He was excellent in both and one of the hightlights in the latter, IMO. (I was underwhelmed by that particular P&P.) I recommend Cranford if you can catch it on telly or DVD.