Bad attitudes

So, the NZ athletes aren’t bringing home as many medals from the Commonwealth Games as we thought they might. I turn on the TV, and members of the public are berating them.

“We just don’t seem to have that winning attitude, like Australia”

“They’re just not trying hard enough”

Excuse me, People-who-were-dawdling-around-somewhere-long-enough-to-talk-to-a-TV-crew, but when was the last time you put all your heart and soul into training and did well enough to represent your country? How dare these non-athletes dare to criticise the efforts of our team. Of course they want to win. Of course they are trying their best. As if they would go to compete thinking, “you know, I’m just going to go with the flow, and I don’t care about winning for my country”.

On the Aussie issue – there’s no point making the comparison. Not only is their country far bigger than ours in terms of geography and population, the sporting infrastructure is far more advanced. There’s no way we should expect to measure up to their standards. And our standards should not be measured on some medal tally predictions. It should be measured on the pride of our athletes, competing for NZ and reaching their personal potential. Let’s support them as best we can, no matter where they end up finishing.

Amateur Critics

I have a bit of a dilemma with regards to my almost-finished manuscript. I have given it to a couple of my friends to read. I’m anxiously awaiting their opinions, but I recently read (in Gordon Wells’ “The Business of Writing”) advice from a writer stating that you shouldn’t look for criticism from those not in the business. I don’t know anyone in the business, so I’m wondering if I should just use my own judgement – which is of course very subjective – and submit to the first publisher on my list. I’m torn between just wanting to get the darn thing out there and wanting it to be perfect.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Sending my baby off into the world

It’s a wild, fierce day. Even as I sit here in the office, the rain is bashing at the windows and the wind screams through any doors. The stairwell is dark, which only serves to increase my desire to get back to my bed and snooze. Apparently, the radio was warning this morning to remove anything from your backyard that could potentially be a missile. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s summer here in New Zealand? That’s slightly unfair; we haven’t had any real rain since December. I just wish it wouldn’t rain when I have to walk to work (from my car parked some distance away).

Now I’ll get to the real subject of this post. The ‘baby’ I speak of is my novel. On Sunday I worked on it fiercely, even foregoing a swim as it was then stiflingly hot. I made sure that I’d followed up on all my notes, and in between dinner at my parents’ I reconfigured the chapters. A final spell check, and after hitting the “ignore” button a hundred times I was finished. Then I emailed it off to a friend of mine who’s currently in England for a critique – a safe enough distance away that I won’t see him cringing through all of the sentimental passages. I’m really interested to hear what he has to say though, from an academic point of view.

Yesterday I printed it out, and late last night (après making cottage pie and banana cake) I managed to start reading it. I was shocked at the errors I found leaping off the page. Editing on screen is a world away from having all the pages side by side in front of you. In the early chapters, which granted I haven’t read in detail for quite some time, there were blatant inconsistencies and word repetition. How could this be? I wondered. How embarrassing. Just as well I did decide to do a hard copy check. Last night I also texted a local friend of mine who is an historical fiction fiend. She has also promised to give it the once over and comment. The copy she gets from me will be littered with edits and crossings-out, but oh well. I’m sure she’ll get the gist. I’m not going to print it out again until it’s the final copy.

I was very nervous about getting these people to read my story. No-one, not even my husband or mother, has even read a paragraph of it before. Being my first full-length work, I’m very wary of it being rubbish. I mean, how would I know? However, these two people have been so generous in assuring me they feel privileged to do the job, I feel a bit better about the whole thing. I just hope that I can take their feedback and criticism and use it to good effect. The outcome I’m dreading is that they highlight some weakness which I have no idea how to correct. Time will tell I suppose. For now I will continue my hard copy review and await the response of my first guinea pig. I’m also voraciously researching manuscript submission tips.

Oh yeah – my final word count was 102,500. So my original estimate a few years back of 100K wasn’t too far off.

Check out these links

For intellectual stimulation: Arts and Letters Daily

For something to eat: E-cook

For something to read: Book Club

For somewhere to walk: New Zealand Tramper

And for a little light relief: Spank the Monkey