Whoa

I am one line-edit away from being finished the MS I've been working on for the past four and a half years. It's scary, to say the least.

I've always thought it was really, really sucky - I mean, I started writing it when I was fourteen! And no matter how much raw talent I had, I had NOT reached a level where I had any kind of eye for... well, anything. My writing was bloated and my prose was very, very purple. I was over-dramatic and wanted this story to be the next Romeo and Juliet. I was convinced it had to be this sweeping, epic tragedy.

But something about it stuck with me. I finished the first draft a few months after I started it, but I've been re-writing it ever since. Every year, from writing other novels, I've gotten better, and I bring that new knowledge back to this MS. Somehow, I'm still as passionate about it as I was when I started it, and so a few weeks ago when I discovered Valerie Kemp's amazing post about first chapters, I realized the potential it had.

Needless to say, after 4.5 years of rewrites, it is not even the same book anymore. Hell, only two of the four important characters were even in the original draft. Not a single scene it contains now was a part of the original MS.

I have my completed MS.

I have a kick-ass (I think!!) query letter.

And now, only one line-edit and four beta readers stand between me and starting to query agents. Ahhhh!!!