Selling Hope & the Wednesday Writers

Three years ago, something wonderful happened. I got stuck in line. Actually I was stuck in line for the ladies’ restroom at a writers’ conference (a common occurrence). I spoke to the woman in front of me and told her I was new to the Nashville area. Her name was Jennifer Lambe. I asked if she might be interested in getting together for coffee and maybe a little manuscript critiquing. She said yes! When we returned to the auditorium, she introduced me to another writer, Kristin O’Donnell Tubb. Kristin said she would be interested in the coffee and the manuscript critiques, too. I met another writer, Hannah Dills, at an RWA chapter meeting and she wasn’t interested in coffee, but she was definitely interested in manuscript critiques. So the Wednesday Writers started meeting for coffee (and tea) and we started critiquing manuscripts.

One of the first manuscripts we critiqued is in bookstores today! It’s Selling Hope by Kristin O’Donnell Tubb. Here’s the blurb:

It’s May 1910, and Halley’s Comet is due to pass thru the Earth’s atmosphere. And thirteen-year-old Hope McDaniels and her father are due to pass through their hometown of Chicago with their ragtag vaudeville troupe. Hope wants out of vaudeville, and longs for a “normal” life—or as normal as life can be without her mother, who died five years before. Hope sees an opportunity: She invents “anti-comet” pills to sell to the working-class customers desperate for protection. Soon, she’s joined by a fellow troupe member, young Buster Keaton, and the two of them start to make good money. And just when Hope thinks she has all the answers, she has to decide: What is family? Where is home?

Congratulations Kristin!

Revise or Rewrite?

I am revisiting an old manuscript I wrote a few years ago, my Hurricane Katrina YA novel. Hopefully I have learned a thing or two (or three) about writing since I finished the first draft 3 ½ years ago.

I dug the story out a few weeks ago, along with tons of hurricane info. I was trying to find information on birds trapped inside the eye of a hurricane for my critique partner, Jennifer Lambe, because she’s working on this great non-fiction book about weird weather. I read a few pages of the manuscript, the end specifically, and had the ‘I love this story’ moment. Now I want to revise the manuscript, for myself at the very least, to see if I can make the story stronger.

I started with the synopsis (still under construction) and made some plot notes. Now I’m thinking, Is an entire rewrite in order?

Have you ever opened a blank document and rewritten the same story over again two or three years later? I did it once and the story came out so much better. I’m hoping the same thing could happen here. Only one way to find out.