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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: The Critique/Review (for writers) (05/06/10)
I’ve always loved to read. It’s fed my love for how language and communication are structured; and for how people shape this structure.

Solving crossword puzzles – straight or cryptic – sharpened my grasp of synonyms and shades of meaning, so I became more confident that my great unpublished novel would avoid blandness, repetition and predictability. I just knew that readers would keep turning its pages: lured and fulfilled by their variety, their subtle nuances and their depth.

The desire to give birth to my own classic was enhanced as I learned to read on two simultaneous levels while exploring other classics and modern writers.

It became a pleasure to accept skilled authors’ invitations to walk around within their pages and live their novels with them. Coming to the last page in some of their series had become like reluctantly bidding farewell to old friends.

Yet underlying that pleasure was the extra thrill of detecting how they’d placed and developed their characters to shaped their stories. I also recognised how they could reveal their subtle or blatant research: within conversations; by quoting official notices from fictitious organisations; or by introducing “nerd like” characters that arrived solely to add technical information or analyses that the main protagonists could not embrace or embody without stretching credibility too far.

These wordsmiths could make their pages come to life through clear descriptions or inferences of weather, of seasons or of sounds. And by tracing emotions and mood swings, and by depicting the colour and speed of how their characters moved or conflicted with each other, they added flesh and blood tothier ideas

And I just knew that my turn to join their ranks was imminent...

To ensure professionalism and clarity I invested in a new laptop and kept a notepad with me at all times, so those “Aha!” moments would not be lost.

Clearing my calendar of all extraneous involvements, I buried myself and all my extra spare time into producing something that no-one in their right mind would ever put down.

It took five months of losing myself in recording, revising, reflecting and reworking until I had all nine hundred and fifty pages complete: a masterpiece of history, romance, politics, action, analysis, philosophy and suspense. I also included just enough humour to break the tension for readers who could otherwise be lost forever to their everyday world and their need to make a living.

Make way Leo Tolstoy! And you too, Charles Dickens, John Grisham, Ian Fleming, Bryce Courtenay, Jane Austen, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow! There’s a new kid moving into your neighbourhood!

Knowing that no backyard amateurs would be worthy of me or of my magnum opus, I listed the addresses of ten international publishing houses.

I also cleared my diary and began surfing the net for best options in international travel and accommodation. Responding to one of those inspired moments - the kind that arrive complete with the sweet strains of angelic choirs - I also invested in a book of foreign phrases. After all, since my best-seller would take me all over the world for signing sessions, I wanted to maintain the common touch.

With a wildly-beating heart, I left the courier-service depot, pleased that I’d responded to an extra impulse. Out of concern for the future career of my editor, lest he not recognise the window of opportunity that lay on his desk, I’d clipped a brief, polite note to my preface page: “Please let me know of your decision as early as possible, as I have other irons in the fire.”

You can imagine how my excitement soared when I opened my inbox two days later to find his email: “Thank you for your courteous note and for taking the trouble to offer me your manuscript.”

Until I read his next sentence: “Please place it in with your other irons.”
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This article has been read 1275 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Beth LaBuff 
05/17/10
Ouch! Your editor was heartless! :) Great (and creative) title for this. I had to smile at "There's a new kid moving into your neighbourhood!" I enjoyed reading of all your careful and extensive planning. ...and in case you haven't used your foreign language phrase book yet, (and so that your money won't have been wasted), I'll add, "Muy Bien."
Marilyn Schnepp 
05/18/10
The story itself was interesting, not excitng, but interesting to a person who's "been there/done that" sort of thing. But the last line was a masterpiece! You got that from reading all those great masters of the art of writing....I'm sure! Cute, and the title is what lured me in. So to soothe your pride, How's this? - Great Title and Great last line! And it can't be ironed out...(*.*)!
Brenda Shipman
05/18/10
Oh the painful road to humility! You did a great job of showing the buildup to the great letdown. I could relate to all the dreams of "greatness", as well as the reality check at the end. Great title.
Gregory Kane
05/18/10
This is rather painfully similar to where I am at present so I read your story with a sequence of ouches. As has been said great last line and a wonderfully self-absorbed voice for your MC.
In terms of critique, I felt that your piece took off after the elipsis. Before this I found it a little heavy going, like a jet that's desperately rumbling along. But the second half was a delightful flight of fancy.
Kate Oliver Webb
05/19/10
I thought the material before the elipses was the MC reflecting on the mechanics of writing (very necessary) before getting to the meat of it, so it seemed (to me) to fit.
Yes, the MC showed just the right degree of self-absorption and the last line was the perfect coup de grace.
C D Swanson 
07/28/12
Wow- I thought my "No-thank-you" turn-downs were harsh!

Wow - this was clever, filled with ingenuity that only a brilliant mind can compose. Just goes to show you, it all comes down to "preference" and someone smart enough to ascertain to know what is fabulous...this guy clearly DID NOT.

This editor doesn't know what they are missing!!

You are the best. Thanks Noel, I needed this.

God Bless you~