When I started When The Clock Broke… I didn’t expect to do much with it – I didn’t expect that it would even reach the 50,000 barrier of NaNoWriMo, since my previous two novella hadn’t. Yet, it got to a point where the story was writing itself. It suddenly took off, words coming to me when I least expected them. (Though, that is one thing I adore about writing!)
It was only when I started editing that I got draft doubts – and it was a case more than the first draft blues. It was not the quality of the writing I was worrying about. No, I had total novel meltdown for more than a few moments.
Yes, I got the point where I doubted that my ideas were original, sellable, readable, and even relatable!
I think the one thing about writers is that we have to have the moxie to carry on regardless. So, I did. I bit down my doubt and edited.
And I’m still editing now, to good effect, so it seems. As much as critiquers are those coldly honest, flaw-pointer-outers (of course, I don’t really have a contempt of them!), they also can be, ironically, the best of cheerleaders.
In that way, I have come to know that people like my premise. I was quite delighted when the feedback from Pitch Wars was good in that respect, with one mentor exclaiming that she loved the ‘romance and time-travel to boot!’ (to paraphrase from memory).
So, I guess I’m doing all right in the ideas department.
Now I’ve just got to cut down on the florid overwriting….
Alexandrina Brant 