QuickCon, Quicksilver Quills, and Writing/Crit update
Quicksilver Quill Award
I have to confess that I haven't really been hanging around on MNFF lately. (I don't think I've posted in the forums or even looked at them in months.) Actually I pay very little attention to any HP fandom sites nowadays. So it was a pleasant surprise (thanks avsno26rocks!) to learn that I won another Quicksilver Quill Award. This time it was Best Original Character, for Henry Tsotsie.
Though not a major character in the story for which he was written, Henry has the feel of a character who is a rich, fully-realised human being and leaves readers wanting to know more about what stories he has to tell. His life has meaning and scope outside of the realm of the story and the main character. Also, the art of portraying an antagonist who is on the side of good is a difficult one, but Inverarity succeeded with flying colours in the form of Henry Tstosie.
Well, gosh. Thanks. I can promise Henry Tsotsie fans that he'll show up again sooner or later.
Quickcon 2012
I've heard from three people who are coming to CapClave for another QuickCon. Saturday, October 13, is the day (though CapClave is all that weekend) - that's less than two weeks from now. If you are going to be in the DC area and would like to join us, email me for the deets.
OF novel progress
I've got several dedicated readers now, and their feedback helps immensely (though sometimes it is still bemusing - no, I do not mean amusing). I will write a longer post later about critiquing, how well different online critique groups work, and the difference between beta-reading fan fiction and beta-reading fiction intended for publication.
With editing and two or three rounds of revision, the entire draft is now down to just over 90,000 words. (That's positively tiny compared to my fan fiction novels!) That's a shrinkage of about 10% without even really trying (though I did cut an entire chapter and about half of another).
My reviews are almost all positive now, which is to say most of the people reading either my entire manuscript or a chapter or two from it think it's good enough to be publishable, or nearly so. Of course there is a difference between "good enough to be publishable" and "salable."
Anyway, I have a couple of chapters that need some substantial revision, and then I will just be in the tweaking and nitpicking stage, at which point I should just let it sit while I start sending queries, because I could tweak and nitpick forever.