Matthew S. Rotundo's Pixeltown

Meant to start my revision of "Wet Work" last week, but another rewrite project popped up, needing immediate attention.  And just as I finished that one, yet another rewrite project popped up.  I tell ya, they’ve been like dandelions in springtime here lately.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  I’m just sayin’.

The upshot is that work on the new novel will be delayed a bit more.  I can just see it standing in the corner of my mind, tapping its foot impatiently and checking its watch.  Hang in there, baby.  Soon, you’ll be seeing entirely too much of me.

Rewrites bring with them their own unique anxieties.  Chief among them for me is the fear that I’m not making the right fixes, that I’m fiddling too much with stuff that works, and ignoring the real problems.  Or sometimes the rewrite goes easier than I first supposed, which leads me to wonder if I’m being too lazy.  And sometimes I just overthink it.  (Overthink?  Moi?  Perish the thought.)

I had some of those moments last week.  At which point, I had to smack myself upside the head and recall that I’ve done this once or twice before–sometimes even successfully.  And then get back to work.

One update for Write Club:  a tier one rejection from an agent on a novel query.

And so, having re-disposed of the monster, exit our hero, stage right.

Once again, I’m in the lull between projects, and I spent most of it in the usual way:  catching up on some correspondence, maintaining my marketing database, and getting mss in the mail–well, some queries, anyway.

By the end of the week, I worked my way around to a very quick read-through of "Wet Work," the story which I plan to use as a springboard into the next novel project.  I’ve not done this kind of thing before.  I wound up reading it a little differently, with an eye toward continuity with the novel.  Turns out there are some disconnects.  So now I have to decide if I should adjust the novel to conform to the short story, or the other way around.  Interesting challenge.

But first, I have to work on another rewrite–something that just came up.  More later.

Write Club update:  Nice personal note from Escape Clause.  Response time, about five weeks.

And I’m out.