Moving on to WFN2

WFN2 (World Famous Novel 2), aka 'An Immigrant's Tale' has had feedback from five guinea pig readers and the verdict from them is very positive. However their advice is that there is still work to be done before I can start approaching publishers with the sample chapters. "Too descriptive", "not descriptive enough", "clever twists and turns in the plot", "couldn't work out how Dusty was linked to William" - therefore how do I go about using the differing suggestions without losing sight of the story I wanted to tell?

Book Reading in Nakusp, Dec 10th 2011

The answer is in the story itself and it is found in the characters I have created. I realised this today when I was presenting my novel 'A Place to Play' at the local library. My colleague who introduced me quoted me from my BCPVPA article when I had said that I worked with my charaters Martha, Rudi and Trojan to get that story told.  The three teenagers are very much part of my life these days and I sometimes wonder what their opinions are about things I do and see. For example, at school with the teachers on strike action and not doing supervision at recess (break time) it could have been easy to cancel recess (and hence play time) but I didn't. I'm out there every recess making sure that the children have time to play in. I know that Martha, Rudi and Trojan would be pleased with me and I sometimes feel they are out there too.  I think they would rank me up there with their own Dr Grey.

So it is then, that as I do a final edit and polishing to 'An Immigrant's Tale' this Christmas holiday I am going to have to involve my characters. William will have to tell me what Halifax sounded like in 1917, Catherine is going to have to let me know what her name would be if she chose it herself (we all do that from time to time, don't we?: "If I could have chosen my own name I would have chosen...") and Vanessa will have to describe to me how she can walk down an Ottawa street with a ghost arm-in-arm and not look an odd-ball to people around her.

Even though I am moving on now in my focus from 'A Place to Play' to 'An Immigrant's Tale' Martha, Rudi and Trojan are still with me. Indeed, they will be here to help me craft an even better tale as we all have experience now working on a novel. We are no longer unpublished, we have learnt the ropes. 'An Immigrant's Tale' will be a better written novel; I never professed that 'APTP' was a piece of literature only that the story was a good one. I do hope, however, that my second novel does show that I am growing as a writer. A clever signature piece would be to offer Martha, Rudi and Trojan cameo roles in William and Vanessa's tale. I wonder if they will accept?