// February 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Books
Writing my sequel is going a bit slower than I’d hoped. It’s funny how life gets in the way of things. Thankfully, I am more than three-quarters finished, well, I WAS three-quarters finished until my son read through my manusript. He is a voracious reader at eight years old (almost nine) and recently asked if he could read my sequel from my laptop. A couple of months earlier, I’d read the first eight chapters to him and he was curious to find out what happened in the subsequent seven chapters that I’d completed since.
Always thrilled to share my writing with any of my boys, I opened up the document and left him alone. His initial comments were typical of any young boy. “It was great!” But I’m no fool. As any good editor or writer will admit, there is always room for improvement (especially when it’s a first draft!)
A couple days later, he and I were hanging out at a Tim Horton’s together and I forced him to elaborate further on his critique of my book. Hey – I could use the help, after all, this is free consulting advice from my target reader group.
It didn’t take a lot of prodding to get the kid to ‘fess up. His biggest issue was with my latest chapter. It’s LAME. I’d written a video game scene where Danny had to outwit and outplay his opponents in an effort to learn some tricks of the online world (these traits he acquires will later help him to complete his quest). Well, it needs a re-write. We discussed what kinds’ of things would be best. Peter drummed up: dragons, mythology, or the elements (fire, ice, earth). All neat ideas.
So, it’s back to work for me. This time, I’m going to make it awesome. But if I don’t — I’m not too worried, my son will let me know.
While the book will not be hitting book stores until another month, parents and kids can still get their hands on a signed copy at holiday events. Here are two upcoming book signings:
