The Return of the Manuscript

It only took four months, but at long last, my manuscript, Legend of the Gangster's Gold made its way home again. To be honest, as many times as I had gone over that manuscript, I was quite content with it being gone for awhile.  Yet, I was still eager to know what my agent thought of the entire thing. She'd only read the first few chapters prior to this, so it was all new to her.

That was my biggest fear. Would Dawn require me to rewrite massive parts of the book? Would she have second thoughts about even representing it? I know it wasn't perfect. It was my first  book ever (well, if you don't count the story I wrote in middle school about how the entire school was kidnapped by Nazis and we were forced to escape by digging tunnels with spoons. That was during my "Hogan's Heroes" phase). I knew it would need work, but was it trash? Yes, I know people have told me how much they enjoyed it, but I'm as insecure as the next fledgling writer, and I knew Dawn's opinion was going to be the one that mattered most.

It was with great fear and trepidation that I opened the innocuous email entitled simply "manuscript". This was it. I opened it and quickly scanned through all the red editorial marks swarming across the pages. Yet, despite their numbers, none of them were serious problems. They were where Dawn had eliminated the apparently never popular "said" tags, excess wordy words, changes in tense, etc. There were a few places she felt needed some clarification, but again nothing like "rewrite the entire second half of the book." I couldn't believe it. I was thrilled! Honestly, with as many time as I and my critique partners had gone over that manuscript, I would have thought we'd have found all the passive tense verbs, excess exclamation points, and improperly placed commas, but apparently, I was wrong. But, that's okay. I knew that having Dawn finally read it was the only way I would finally understand exactly what SHE wanted to see. Now, I know.

So, I am currently going through all 237 pages of my manuscript, making all the changes she requested as well as looking for additional ways to improve it. My goal is to have it done by next week prior to leaving on a trip. I think I'll make it. Then, I'll be just that much closer to realizing my dream!