Day 64

Day 64: The day when I start giving author interviews and feel incredibly sheepish.

You can read my first one here.

It is also the day I get a mention in a famous consulting firm's "Book Club" newsletter (and not even BM's!).  Apparently, ITPI is the perfect indulgent honeymoon beach read. I may be the only one to find that ironic.

I love capitalism as much as the next "muesli-chewing, sandal-wearing, bike-riding pedestrian". Mostly because the open marketplace reveals the many guilty pleasures that people publicly disdain but privately enjoy. To that end, this month's book club edition is devoted to "guilty reading pleasures". These are the books you might not leave out on your coffee table. They're the comics you might hide inside the GMAT study guide. They are the tabloid magazines you say you never buy and the airport thrillers you'd never pick up in front of a case team. It's the chick lit that is piled under your bed. Ultimately, guilty reading pleasures are a bit like eating a family-sized block of chocolate by yourself – it feels a bit sinful, but is nonetheless very enjoyable.

We caught Hot-Shot Female Consultant (my insert, obviously) in week 1 back from her honeymoon, which provided lots of time to fuel her love for trashy novels…

...

Anything else in the trashy genre that you'd recommend?

"In the Past Imperfect" by Isabelle Solal. I actually read it because the author is friends with Ozzie Chick (ok, the actual newsletter doesn't call her that).  It's about a high flying lawyer who loses a client, takes a leave of absence and spends six months in Paris with her sister where she re-meets an old love. The way she describes her life at work is very relatable to our lives at (insert name of firm); the challenge of trying to balance her personal life and her career aspirations, and not being able to ignore the blackberry!

Day 43

And the winner is...

Congratulations newyorkaise! You will now be a character in my new book!  Oooh, there's so much for me to play with there, I'm really looking forward to it!

And thank you to everyone else who posted a review.  Please keep them coming, they really are very useful to me (especially when you're being honest - although please refrain from outright brutality).

Also, I suspect (but can't prove) that a higher number of reviews earns you spots on amazon searches.  Regardless of whether the review is a good one or not.

Day 35

Yesterday I got my first bad review.

First impressions: it hurt.  Not so much because it was bad (although a little bit because of that) but mostly because I agreed.  Ms Reviewer (a complete stranger) somehow spotted all the issues I struggled with over the 9 long months it took to bring the novel to life, all the flaws that appeared so glaringly to me, like clogged pores in a makeup mirror, and which I had almost managed to forget when my friends gave such a resounding cheer.

Ms Reviewer's main complaints: my pacing is off, the action rushes and slows with no apparent rhyme or reason.  And I use too much passive voice (despite my constant battle against it).  The one complaint I wasn't completely sure I agreed with was my apparent capital crime of "head-hopping".

Sorry?

Head-hopping, as I've just learned, is editor-speak for switching points of view.  And a huge no-no if you want to get published.  It doesn't even have to be extreme switching either.  If I may quote from Ms Reviewer:

I once had someone (a bestselling author no less) tell me I'd been "head hopping" because I wrote that the "throat constricted" on one of my characters, and he thought that my POV character would not have been able to observe this. For good or ill, people have become downright paranoid about head hopping.

Well.  I don't know what to say about that really, except I guess it means my publishing future is doomed.  At least now I know why.

After 24 hours the initial shock has died down, to leave room for something more positive.  Who hasn't had a bad review?  People whose books have never been read, that's who.

So my book is out there, for better or worse.  Maybe it wasn't ready.  Maybe there wasn't enough editing.  Maybe no amount of editing would have made it publishable anyway.  But at least it's being read.  Some people will like it.  Some won't.

And that's okay.