Melodramatic title, I know. A friend I met online who has signed recently with a good literary agency offered to read my older novel Valkia's Gift. I had essentially trunked the thing, thinking it was something to re-visit later when I had a better understanding of my craft.
He got back to me today and said, essentially the first quarter is shaky, the second quarter is good and the second half is of a quality he would expect from a book in a major bookstore.
Which brings me to a dilemma. Do I focus my energy on Valkia, leaving Aetherstorm on the back burner for a while while I give it one last hurrah, or do I let the dead lie for a little longer, work on getting Aetherstorm published and use the experience and connections I develop through that process to sell Valkia?
It is problematic. Aetherstorm, like Valkia has a beginning I am not quite happy with, but I can't quite place my finger on what is wrong, but I think is otherwise a very good book. Editing has bogged down, and you can see my blogging has slowed, always a sign I'm less than 100% happy with my work at the moment.
I think for now I'll send Aetherstorm off to some beta readers and wait for their responses before continuing to beat my head against a wall with it. Meanwhile I can hopefully beat Valkia into shape and get it back out there. As I've said before it was this ][ close before.
1 comment:
Sounds like a cunning plan. I always spend some time editing something from the past before doing a serious edit on the new shiny thing. Gives me better perspective on both.
Louise Curtis
Post a Comment