Lately, it feels like I spend more time contradicting myself on this blog than I should. (Correction: I spend more time planning to blog and not actually doing it than I should.)
One of the last posts I did that wasn’t a book review mentioned that I was close to querying POSITIVELY ANONYMOUS. That wasn’t a lie. At the time, I thought I was close. I’d made it into the Blind Speeding Dating Contest, and I thought my MS was in pretty good shape.
Then a few things happened in quick succession, one of which being that I got some feedback for PA that was cemented by the complete dearth of requests I received during the contest. Once that was behind me, I figured it was time to go back to the drawing board and figure out what I needed to work on.
Here’s the thing. I made a classic mistake, assuming that because I’d already done some revisions on the beginning, I should focus on the ending where the progress felt sloppy. The problem was, though early revisions came on an entirely different draft at a different stage in my process. I allowed myself to get complacent, to assume that I’d started in the right place with the correct opening scene.
It was something of a blow when I realized I hadn’t–that there was still some work left to be done on POSITIVELY ANONYMOUS. Once I accepted that, I expected the revisions to happen fast. Unfortunately life intervened, and I wasn’t in any mood or frame of mind to rewrite the beginning.
Then, when I had some space in my head to give the story its proper consideration, I realized that there was more information to obtain. The sources I’d used–while accurate–were providing me with conflicting information. Information necessary to the new beginning I had in mind. This doesn’t surprise me, if only because there have been so many different developments from the beginning of the AIDS epidemic to now.
So, where does that leave this MS? Well, I’m meeting with a firsthand source this coming week–a doctor who has worked with AIDS patients for years. I’m hoping that our talk will answer my most pressing questions. After I have the facts necessary to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, I’ll get back to work. Ideally, POSITIVELY ANONYMOUS will be ready to query by the end of April.
That’s where I’m at. Have the rest of you been more productive than I was, or did March sap your creative energy also? Why?