Happy Holidays to everyone. May you have a great New Year.
Sorry, it's been a while since you've heard from me. I have plenty of excuses but nothing to do with health thank goodness. To be quite honest I ran out of ideas to write about even though my blog clearly indicates books and beyond.
Last night my niece came by and asked for help in creating a blog, which made me feel guilty that I've neglected this one. But life does get in the way, even when trying to rewrite a novel.
My niece has a wonderful way with words but hasn't had time to make use of her passion for writing until now. Being a good aunt, I want to encourage her means of expression. So, the two of us sat down and I explained about blogger.com, the site I use. Sure, there are so many other free sites to use, including Wordpress, but the reason I didn't go with Wordpress was the form one fills out seemed so endless when I looked into it. This blog site didn't seem complicated to set up over a year ago. But do you think I could remember exactly what steps I took first to set it up? No. Of course not.
It also didn't help that my niece wasn't ready to write a profile, etc. and her laptop was acting up. When we finally made it into blogger I helped her come up with a title for her blog and a page address where people can find her. Without doing anything more to the site we left it, and then went back in several times to make sure the page had been established. This morning she called and said she couldn't get into her blog. Now, she'll probably have to recreate it.
Moral of the story: don't create a blog until you're ready to enter all information required. And don't get frustrated in trying to set one up. Once you've created it, you're on your way.
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Rewriting a published novel.
For a long time, I have been giving serious thought to rewriting my first novel due to its cost compared to my other novels. I like bundling my books for events, but I always leave that one out of the mix.
Over a month ago, a relative did something really nice for us and didn't want to be paid. He loves to read and so I decided to give him a copy of the first novel. For some reason, after I gave it to him I began to page through a copy I had and felt guilty I'd gifted it. I decided then and there it was time to rewrite the novel. Whether it was appropriate or not. And so that's what I've been busy doing for several months now instead of working on my sixth novel.
Why is it taking so long to do if the material is already on my hard drive? Because it's not. I wrote my first novel on an Apple computer, long gone from this home, and had saved it on a floppy disk, not a flash drive. Luckily, I still had the hard copy I hadn't had the heart to toss in 2003 and began the laborious process of retyping the manuscript again. I sure hope it's worth the time spent on it.
Have any of you novelist ever rewritten a total book after it's been published? I sure would love some feedback. My goal is to have the book available by spring. Wish me luck!
Until Next Time
This is Marlene Chabot
Mystery Author
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