Friday Rants and Raves - May 2

[sarillia]

Hello all! It's been another week. How has life been treating you and your writing?

This week's picture is Jean Leon Gerome's Cave Canem (Beware of Dog).

Comments

[inkdust]

This week was supposedly me "taking a break," but I think it's been somewhat effective because I'm beginning to feel like working again and that utterly drained feeling has subsided. I'm just afraid of it coming back when I sit down to try again.

I did finally get myself to write a prompt just now, to get something written, and at the very end I landed on a cool bit of background for one of my main characters: "Her mother just seemed to enjoy people, and from the moment she realized that, at the age of nine, she knew that her mother would never be the person she could count on."

I think I'm also going to be starting editing on my third draft pretty soon, and I have a feeling that will make me feel better about myself.

[serria]

Nice! I like little sentences that smoothly tell the reader not only something about the character's background, but also the character's personality.

Good luck with your third draft! How many drafts do you think it'll take?

[inkdust]

If I were absolutely required to estimate a number, I'd say minimum four drafts before I might feel ready to start querying. I definitely want another round of beta readers (though this round has had questionable success in getting feedback from my busy friends) and subsequent edits. But this is my first time really getting into the editing stages, so I don't know much of anything, haha.

[sarillia]

I hope your break has done you good. They can be very helpful sometimes, which is something I need to remind myself of when I'm feeling guilty about not getting anything done.

I really like that sentence. I almost want to write something with a parent-child relationship like that myself because the story that goes with it feels really interesting.