I declare Lethal Inheritance finished – at least until I get a publisher and their editor wants changes. For now though, I’m done, and I’ve emailed the ms to my agent along with my revamped blurb.
In this last round of edits, I got rid of another 5000 words and redid the beginning. Again.
I discovered and fixed
- Too many ‘hearts’ – thumping, fluttering, lifting, sinking, shrinking etc. You name it, I had it. Every couple of pages, sometimes twice on a page. I cut it down to generally no more than every 10 pages. Every time I changed it, I discovered that the words was either not necessary or the change was an improvement, because I found a more interesting – or at least different – way to say the same thing.
It’s amazing what you find when you do a search for a particular word. I’d done it with many others but not this one. Thanks, Laurie for picking it up. - Unnecessary details manifesting as superfluous phrases in how small things happened eg where an objected was picked up from, or how Ariel got to a place in the fence where she could watch the demon in the Thompsons back yard.
- Not enough clarity about the nature of the energetic interactions between Nick and Ariel, and the development of their relationship
- Stereotypical aspects of one of the minor characters
As well as this, since publishers looked at it last, I have
- Minimised and clarified the POV changes.
- Clarified explanations of the world of the hidden realm
- Improved the quality of the writing.
Now, I’m hoping that the timing is right for one of the publishers who’ll get it in the near future to love it and publish it. I emailed it to my agent on the Tibetan New Year, which is an auspicious date.
And so, the waiting game begins….. Stay tuned, and ask the universe to fall into alignment so the circumstances are right for Lethal Inheritance to find a big publisher soon. Very soon. I’m kind of sick of waiting for this to happen.
Congratulations! It’s also great that you enumerated the sorts of changes you still found you needed to make, even now. I’m sure that will be helpful to many people…including me.
Congratulations! That must feel wonderful! I always find your tips and writing trials useful.
Yay! Good luck!
Thanks everyone for your good wishes. I think they’re a necessary part of winning the publishing lottery because there’s so many elements about it that we can’t control, especially timing. I feel a blog post coming on.