My writer’s group met last night. I gave them a picture book manuscript that Pelican asked me to write, but I don’t have a contract for yet (in fact, the editor e-mailed me last Friday to see how I was coming on that)…I was happy to hear that for the most part it’s in good shape. They did catch a couple of things, though. And there’s one section I can’t decide what to do with, so I wrote it both ways and asked them which version they liked best. Of course the vote split, so now I have to decide which way to go. And then I want to change the end a little bit (which will also involve changing another section, but I think it’s do-able). I should be able to get that done today or tomorrow (and hopefully I won’t get behind on my NaNoWriMo word count!).
One of our group members was offered a contract yesterday, which was really exciting (we really need to DO something to celebrate as a group when we get new contracts!)! The only problem is I think the rest of us were way more excited than she was. She’s gone back and forth with this editor for SO long…did an incredible amount of work before a contract was issued that she’s just tired. And she feels like the story isn’t even hers because it’s so far from where she started. She didn’t just change a few things here and there…she wrote about six or seven COMPLETELY different stories. So now that she’s finally done, we brainstormed things she could write in her acknowledgments (gee, I wish I’d done acknowledgments for my last book! Except my acknowledgments would’ve been more…hmm, I don’t know if “heartfelt” is the right word. The ones we came up for my friend were certainly heartfelt. Let’s just say mine would’ve been acknowledgments that could actually have been printed!), which was highly entertaining. What’s really sad, though, is my friend doesn’t think she can ever work with this editor again. Watching her go through this for the last YEAR sure makes me grateful to be working with the editors I’m working with. But at least she did get the contract in the end.
