Monday, October 08, 2007

Sorry for the Silence and Links

Sorry I haven't been posting....there are several reasons for it. First I was focused on bashing August Rock into shape and zapping it off to the Amazon contest. But then I thought do I really want to do this? The answer came back not really because I know that shortly I will not meet the entry requirements of being resident in the UK ( the UAE was not one of the allowed countries) and the other reasons was that i must bite the bullet and sub agents.

So for a few days I was in a frenzy of editing - good stuff and then into deep reflection. Neither of these promoted blog writing moods. Oh and did I mention that we had car to choose and thinking about beach clubs - tough I know but someone has to it :-)

Yesterday I spent my writing time trying to squash my synopsis down to one page double spaced and yet still retain the essence of the story. I went back to my notes for the Romantic Novelist Conference from Emma Dunford's session. She was emphatic about one page double spaced! In the end I got there but I will reread with a clear head today to see if it really worked. After a while I was just cutting wildly! I am hoping it's like a blurb but reveals all yet it could be an unintelligible disaster.

In my Sunday blog search I came onto C.S. Harris blog discussing Plotter vs Pansters. It's well worth a look as it makes plotting seem less onerous to me (being a panster). Finally caught with Ray-Anne's blog this week which I enjoy for her feature of English Cheese as she calls them ( absolutely gorgeous English leading men - this week Jason Isaacs) and wise words. Two of her posts this week hit home - How to eat and Elephant tackling rewriting and some seriously good writing tips.

8 comments:

Ray-Anne said...

Thank you for those kind words Liz. I'm delighted you find my pathetic efforts useful - and cheesy. :)
You may have gathered that there is no one more critical of my own work that I am - and I do mean that. So anything I can find to help beat it into shape which is worth sharing - I will.
Only good times ahead.
Beach club... ummm.

Jan Jones said...

I don't double-line-space synopses, Liz. I ease the margins out to 2 cm all round, drop a font point and then try it at 1.5-line-space.

Phillipa said...

Gulp.I didn't make my synopsis for Decent Exposure so short as that, Liz. It was two pages, 1.5 cm spaced. :( But I'm almost certain that the first few pages were read before the synopsis.

Alyssa Goodnight said...

Sorry the Amazon contest didn't work out, but congratulations on getting your stuff ready to submit!

Interesting theory on the synopsis--I always thought agents were looking for more meat, more like five pages.

Unknown said...

Yes, I cut and I cut to reach the required one page, double spaced synopsis for this particular agent. That is what they specifically requested. I imagine others are different :-)

In despair I had thought about changing font size and going to 1.5 but I made it!

Anonymous said...

Liz,
Congrats on getting a synopsis down; it's daunting.

As to the contest, sometimes things like this just serve to light a fire under our ass to get some serious work done. Deadlines can be a very useful motivator.

Lane Mathias said...

Liz - all your links are great. There's always something extremely useful in them so many thanks:-)

Hope you find the right beach club:-)
x

Lisa said...

Glad you got some serious work done and don't ever apologize for not posting daily. You'll make me feel guilty too!