–Jo-Anne Richards
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Image courtesy LeJyBy
Never show your manuscript to anyone who matters too early. I always try to impress this upon our writing students: once it’s been rejected, you’re not going to be unrejected, no matter how many times you rework it.
Then I usually do exactly what I caution against. I go over a manuscript once, then press “Send” with something of a flourish.
Once I send off a manuscript, I can’t just forget it. I keep working over it in my mind. Eating, sleeping, walking, working at other things, it manages to crawl into my consciousness.
This time, I imagined my publishers reading it; pictured them flipping through the hard copy, and suddenly, with great clarity, I became aware that I wasn’t at all happy with it. Luckily, my editor at Pan Macmillan knows me – and I know her well enough to tell her I’d like another go at it.
I was fortunate on a couple of fronts – to have such understanding publishers, and to have published before. It’s not something you can easily do with a first manuscript: “Hey, by the way, I was careless enough to send you a draft I’m no longer happy with. Please bear that in mind while you’re reading it?” I don’t think so.
But Pan knew my work and hopefully they also knew I was a professional. They understood I would want to make it as good as it could be.
I’m well aware that the piece of advice I’m giving here isn’t that easy to abide by. Hell, I struggle with it myself. How do you really know that a book is ready to be seen by anyone important?
And how many times should a book be rewritten, anyway? I suppose it is possible to rework a book too much. Perhaps there does come a time when you begin to erode the freshness of the voice or some special quality of the writing.
But generally, I think, the opposite is true. We are too impatient. We fall in love with our words and want everyone else to fall in love with it too.
There’s no easy answer to this. I suppose it’s a matter of listening to those you have trusted with reading it – and to your own inner voice. Somewhere deep inside, I think you always know.
- The Imagined Child (Picador Africa) will launch in March.
Read more of Jo-Anne’s blogs on writing The Imagined Child.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
