Two Steps Forward. Zero Back?

It’s weird how things change.

Last year I thought I had two workable manuscripts with little issue. This year I see the work I need to do to fix them because they’re a damn mess. Plots are iffy, motivations are weak, worldbuilding needs work. Heavy work. The only thing I have going for them are my likeable characters.

Doppelganger came back with a pretty raving review the other day. I cannot believe it. I have to make a pretty serious decision about whether to cut a particular scene. It’s one of those 50/50 you’ll either love and understand the motivations for it or you hate it and it makes the character look bad. Tough for me because I see both sides. I would love to keep it and let someone else make the decision later if it comes to that, but I don’t want to take the chance of it staying, either. If that makes any sense. I don’t want anyone to dislike this particular character.

Anyway, the plot is straight. Characters were her favorite so far. Sentence structure was mostly tight. It’s clear I type faster in the last part of the ms and missed some things. Any questions she had were minor and easily fixable. I’m actually in awe by the lack of work I have to do.

So what I have here is an ms that’s just about ready to query. And I might have a shot. That’s pretty scary. Weird, too, knowing I’m about to send out a book that I believe has no huge issues. Oh, you best believe I tried querying those other two manuscripts thinking my plot issues were small enough to slide.

Newbs, right? LOL.

So my sights are set on April! Going to get the query and synopsis squared away next month, as well as the first 50. Seriously glad I’m taking that workshop on Savvy Authors. Can’t mess this one up… Zero Steps Back. ZERO.