Matthew S. Rotundo's Pixeltown

Made notes on the second act of Wet Work last week, filling in more of the roadmap for the rewrite.  The going will be a little trickier than in the first act, but nothing I can’t handle (he said hubristically).  I’m beginning to feel like I can actually do this.  I might even be able to start the rewrite proper this week.  Clutch the pearls. 

Made a fun little discovery along the way.  I was wrangling with a plot problem ably pointed out by one of my beta readers (thanks, David!), and I found the solution in the last place I would think to look–right in front of me.  It just fit perfectly.  It’s one of those little things that others might assume I had planned all along, but which was in reality a happy accident.

Or was it?  (Cue eerie music . . . )

Such are the mysteries of the muse.  Comes with the territory.

Write Club updates:

A tier one bounce from an agent on a novel query, and tier one rejection from Clarkesworld.  Response time on the latter, three days.

Outta here . . .

Spent last week making notes for the Wet Work rewrite.  I didn’t get as far as I would have liked–but since when is that news?

On the positive side, ideas are flowing now.  I have a firm grasp of what needs to be fixed in the first act.  Turn out that I had all the pieces in all the right places, but on a few occasions, they just didn’t make the right moves.  Not unlike setting up a masterful opening and middle game, then blowing the end game in chess.

Yeah, like I would know what a masterful opening and middle game looks like.  My brother would have a thing or two to say about that, I’m sure.

Anyway, it’s interesting to note that I ran into a similar situation with a particular plot thread in Petra Released.  In the rewrite, I didn’t change any of the players or locations, just what they said and did.  Hmmm . . . is a pattern developing?  I’ll let you know.

Now I turn my attention to my second act, which should pretty much square away the rest of the novel.  The third act is short, and doesn’t seem to need much help–that I know of.  Which isn’t saying much.  I mean, really–this from the guy who just attempted a lame chess metaphor.

No updates for Write Club.

I’m out.