Lost…

[Note to D. DON’T read this post until you’ve read T.M.S. — I don’t want you to be swayed by anything you read here…]

I’m feeling a little lost without T.M.S. to work on today…I don’t even have any other deadlines looming on the horizon, so whatever will I do with myself today?

I did get T.M.S. back from one of the members of my Tough group already (she didn’t even have it for 16 hours!), so I could incorporate her changes into the manuscript. She only made five comments on the manuscript, then she quit commenting and just read it straight through. (Wow. Makes me feel like a “bad” member of the Tough critique group — I’ve never read anyone’s manuscript that fast…). Her general impressions were pretty positive, but she’s going to go back and read again, more carefully this time.

One thing she mentioned was T.M.S. sounds an awful lot like P.M.S. Indeed it does. In fact, my face-to-face critique group brought that up, too, but I didn’t think too much of it. After all, we’re a bunch of middle-aged women and the people who will be reading this book will be kids. Do KIDS think about P.M.S.? I don’t know…maybe I SHOULD consider changing that? It wouldn’t be a big deal…I just liked the alliteration of the TRUTH about T.M.S….(what do you think, W.M.? Should I change it to A.M.S.???)

I’m also wondering if I should bring the school counslor’s perspective into this story at all? Tough Critiquer #1 pointed out that the counselor IS kind of harsh…she doesn’t necessarily think it’s a problem, she was just making an observation. My thoughts are that the counselor is being seen through a student’s eyes…he would see her that way. (Plus, some of the things she says/does are word-for-word what a certain…”clue-challenged” counselor once told my Teen at a pretty critical point in his life…oh, if she could see him now, she’d see how very WRONG she was all those years ago!!!! Or maybe she wouldn’t, because like I said, she was clue-challenged.) I don’t know if adding the counselor’s POV would help, hurt or have no effect on this story whatsoever?

Okay, one benefit to waiting for critiques is you get to take a break from the manuscript so you can come back to it with fresh eyes, so I’m going to try and do that. I DO actually have other things I could be doing today…I had told my agent a couple months ago that I had a couple of easy readers I could send her — I haven’t done that yet…and I spoke with my editor at Magination Press (again, at least two months ago!) about another picture book manuscript I have that they might be interested in…she DID express interest, but do you think I ever actually sent it? No-o-o-o… Plus this is a good time to catch up on my Friday Ideas (I’m two weeks behind)…finish writing my first speech for Toastmasters…update my school visit presentation for my spring visits…pull out I Am Anna Winkler again…I know I’m going to cut the last HALF of that book completely. The current halfway point needs to be the ending…but I need a completely different story arc (different obstacles, different everything) to get me there…see, PLENTY to be working on!