feedback Archives | A.S. Akkalon

If this post had a point I’d state it here. It doesn’t. It’s just me ranting about the revision I’m working on. But don’t worry, I love revising.

If you’ve been following the saga of my revision (on my blog, in my monthly updates, on Twitter, or through a psychic connection) you’ll know I shared my sixth draft with my wonderful critique partner, Anna Kaling.

She gave me great suggestions about how I could cut length (my draft is 156k and I want it down to 120k) and make the story more compelling.

This was the first time I’d shared a complete(ish) novel of mine with anyone. It was scary and thrilling.

Since getting Anna’s feedback I’ve been through a number of stages.

Continue reading “A rant about the glorious agony of revising”

My awesome critique partner gave me a pile of suggestions for how I might shorten my manuscript. Here’s my plan for dealing with them.

If you get my monthly digest, you might know that I recently finished the fifth draft of my work in progress (WIP) and enlisted the help of my wonderful critique partner, Anna Kaling, to figure out how to cut 40k words.

Anna got back to me at 3am this morning, and all I could do before work was read her email in a whirlwind of excitement. (Don’t you hate it when real life gets in the way of writing?)

She had some very encouraging things to say, and she suggested some characters and plot threads that she found less than essential to the story.

I was thrilled by her reaction. Then her suggested excisions sank in.

But everything needs to be there!

Continue reading “Excitement and dealing with feedback”