If there was anything that could make a birthday better, this four star, verified name and purchase Amazon.com review sure did:
The Last Track: A captivating and fast paced thriller
Over the course of the project, the manuscript evolved a great deal from the first draft to final PDF. My writing, whether intended or not, changed by virtue of the near religious adherence to schedule. While the genesis of a few characters were there from the earliest drafts, the story was definitely not. Feedback, I’ve learned, is almost always valuable, rarely ever critical. Routine check ins with readers after each draft made a huge difference to the finished product, forced me to try harder, and proved the single biggest determinant in the book finding a publisher that got the story.
Because while the manuscript changed over its journey from gestation to slush piles, my intention never did. There was always one clear and irrefutable aim. Write a book that hit hard, early, and never let up. To me, the most important thing is the reader’s attention. The ability to hold that interst is the real currency of an author. Without a real reason to continue, there may be a great idea, but there very little point sharing it with the nightstand a reader placed the book upon, unfinished–unlikely ever to bother finding their place.
And the neatest thing about the review, is that it sounds as if my intentions were actually realized; what I wanted to do, I actually got on the page.
Now back to writing number next . . .
Critiquing seems to be a difficult thing for many people. I get a lot of “it was good” rather than actual input on how to improve what’s there or feedback on what doesn’t really work. It’s entirely frustrating. And I’d like to say it stems from people not wanting to hurt a writer’s feelings, but I think it’s more that people really don’t know HOW to critique writing. They either don’t understand how to spot weakness in text or they don’t know how to verbalize what they have read.
Also, I like this “writing number next” thing.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to express what your review, coming from someone who actually pays for books and is very particular about what they like, and wholly unafraid to state her opinion in clear language, meant.
Trust me after all the crazy things that happened getting to this point, there’s very little that can hurt my feelings.
And yes, there will be a number next. There’s three high level scenarios I’ve been kicking around for about two months, and a very early draft of another Mike Brody novel, which involves one of the tangential characters in The Last Track. It was a little too ambitious on the first go-round, but now that I have more law enforcement sources and a good feedback loop, I feel like I can tackle it.