Ready for feedback…

My face-to-face critique group meets next week, so today was my deadline for getting pages (however many pages I had) of Truth About T.M.S. to everyone. In an ideal world, I would’ve had an entire draft, but I could tell the week before Christmas that I wouldn’t be quite that far yet (not if I wanted to hang out with the family over break, too). Still, I’m further along than I thought I’d be…I’m at the climax of the story, so the end is in sight!

I reread the whole thing over the weekend and was reasonably happy with the first 50-60 pages…the last 10-15 pages aren’t bad, either. But the 50 pages in between…well, let’s just say they need some work. QUITE A BIT of work. I’m going to need to move some things around (since this is a multi-viewpoint novel, I think some of this stuff is coming out in the wrong order), and I’m probably going to need to delete some sections and write new sections…but I’m not sure any of that will actually fix what’s wrong. I’m not entirely sure what IS wrong…but I decided to go ahead and send all 115 pages to my critique group anyway, even though I’m not happy with it yet…what I especially value about this group is their willingness to talk something through…sometimes I see more when I talk about a problem than when I simply reread the pages over and over.

I’ve also given these 115 pages to Preteen…who will, no doubt, tell me EXACTLY what he thinks. (I’m counting on it…he’s my only critiquer who actually IS the age of the kids I’m writing about.)

I’m not pausing for critiques, though…especially not when I’m this close to the end. I MAY actually reach the end of this draft before our meeting next week, which would be great! Just having the whole thing on paper will help see things differently…