Somebody read my book!

[rowyn]

And liked it, even!

Granted, this somebody is my father, who is arguably rather biased in my favor. But still! :)

He finished it last Wednesday, in fact, but tonight was the first time I talked to him about it. My father is an avid reader, but mostly of mysteries and the occasional sf; he doesn't usually read fantasy of any sort. He wouldn't've read Prophecy if I hadn't written it. But he said he found it quite engaging once he got into it. And I believe him, because he only took about five days to read it -- a pretty good clip to parse a 210,000 word manuscript.

While he admits it has faults, he is of the opinion that I ought to try to publish it straight away, rather than spending a lot more time trying to fix the things that are wrong with it. I don't think I'll be taking this advice; I'll probably sit on it for a few more months, maybe see what other comments I get back from readers. Then I'll revise it; fix some of the characterizations and maybe work on the ending.

But, in any case, I'm glad someone's read it. I'm not the only one who's read the ending anymore! I have someone I can talk to about it!

:D

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

(GUILT!) =/

Bwahahaha!

[rowyn]

The irony is, I didn't post this when I first found out my father had finished it because I thought "Well, then everyone who's been sent a copy but hasn't read it will feel guilty". And then I decided, "No, that's a silly reason not to share good news." :D

But you, of all people, have no excuse for feeling guilty! Goodness, you've been supporting Prophecy? for three years now; I'm hardly going to start complaining because you haven't found the time to read the whole thing again. :) (Well, the ending wouldn't be "again" but the other 180,000 words would be. You get the idea). Without you, there wouldn't be a a finished book for anyone to read. So don't feel guilty!

Incidentally, I did have a suggestion for you on the "bookmarking a file" thing: you could put a little string of characters in at the point where you stop reading, say: ****. Then you could just do a search for **** to find your last stopping place the next time you open it.

I have a hunch that too many of my beta-readers are hung up on the idea of commenting on the whole thing page-by-page, which is an insane task. My dad just read it from start to finish and wrote up comments on his overall impression when he was done. That's fine by me; I don't really need the second draft line-edited when I'm still thinking about developing characters better, adding or removing scenes, and otherwise changing the structure of the novel.

Re: Bwahahaha!

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee!

You know what? That's EXACTLY how I bookmark a file I'm editing! Asterisks and all! Okay, maybe not EXACTLY. I typically use 5 asterisks. Why 5? I have no idea. Habit, I guess. ;)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Yay!

Did you send it to me? It never got here...

[rowyn]

I did, in fact, and have sent it again now. :) Let me know if you don't (or do!) get it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It's here! It's huge!

[rowyn]

It sure is!

[sheepdog.livejournal.com]

What's it about? o.0

[rowyn]

I came up with a book-cover-blurb for this story once, but don't remember where I wrote it down. Let's see what I can come up with now.

"The Last Prophecies tell of the Destroyer: a single woman who will seek the Stone of Fate, the key from which all destinies spring, that she may destroy it -- and with it, the whole of the world. But whether she will succeed or fail, no prophet has been able to foresee.

"The days of the Last Prophecies have come, and the Destroyer has a name: Mariel Sunfire.

"This is her story."

Hmm. That's not very good, but that's what I can come up with for now. :)

[sheepdog.livejournal.com]

Hmm...sounds interesting.
From reading your journal I bet it's very good. :-)
I don't know anything about writing books, but sometimes things are better off left alone. Is there anyone who could give you a professional opinion before re-doing anything?

Lead astray

[krud42.livejournal.com]

I hate the word "read", because when you read it, you don't necessarily know whether it's the past tense "read", or the present-tense/command/request "read".

So in this case, when I read (pronounced "red") your title, I thought it said "Somebody read (pronounced "reed") my book!" (As in a desperate plea of sorts.)

But it's all clear to me now.