First of all - Happy Spring! It is now officially the time of year for flowers, grass, and cleaning things out. With this particular spring comes the revelation that I need to do some novel cleaning. This is all prompted by the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. No I didn't make it through to the next round, but I'm glad I didn't. It took me a few days to come to this revelation, but now I'm going to explain it.
To start, deep down I knew that I wasn't going to make it to the next round, but that didn't stop the initial sadness, thus why I waited until now to mention anything. I was also unsure at first how to take the two reviews I got on my excerpt. To be honest, they hurt. Now that I've been able to grow some thicker skin, however, I realize how lucky I was to get those reviews. They were really constructive, better than a lot of "negative" reviews that others got. I use the quotes around negative because even though these reviews aren't positive about my book (though they did like some points), they aren't exactly negative or bad, but quite helpful instead. They pointed out some things I wasn't particularly happy with either, but that I wasn't willing to admit. So here's the deal: Zone-E is getting a makeover.
Not all of it, mind you, just the beginning. The beginning is slow, I realize that, the anonymous readers notice that, even readers who liked the whole book have mentioned it. Now that the sting has gone away, I'm jumping into a bit of a rewrite. I'm cleaning out the beginning, making it better. There's no law against that. It's part of the reason I self-publish. I'm going to spend the next month or so on this new venture and then I'm going to re-release Zone-E with the new chapters.
What does this mean for those who have already bought the current version on Zone-E? Good question. Your answer: I will be posting the entire rewritten beginning here on my blog. I foresee it being much better than the current opening, so of course I want to share it. It's also a great way to give potential readers a peek at the beginning. It's like a "take a look inside" excerpt. (Actually that's exactly what it is).
I was sad at first, but this rewrite prospect suddenly has me excited. And of course, then Zone-E will be ready for another go at ABNA in 2014! You haven't heard the last of it!
Unfortunately, this means that Counterblow is getting a break. I think it needs one though. I need to not think about it for a while, give it time to breathe. I'm quite stuck on it actually and have no idea where to go with it next - not to mention I can't end it without plotting a little bit of the third book in the trilogy. It's not completely forgotten though, don't worry. I'm not putting it away forever, or even a whole year. It will be finished before this year's NaNoWriMo comes around (the November one...not to be confused with Camp NaNoWriMo, which is a whole different story...)
So that's the deal! I've already begun the rewrite. Hopefully it won't take too long!
