Skip to main content

Procastination on editing my romantic novel: What I picked up on reading my first draft and issues with my hero and heroine

I'm writing a romance novel. I've completed the first draft and now I'm doing the edit though I spend all my time surfing the internet and googling terms that will make it easy for me.

I am procastinating and I'm not sure why.  I'm still thinking and mulling over doing Holly Lisle's course - How To Revise Your Novel but firstly I can't afford it and even if I could I think I'd see procastate over it. I am also mulling over doing another course - a bit cheaper with a tutor and lastly joining a critique website. These are just thoughts and I don't expect to act on them otherwise that will cease to be procastination.

So I'm looking for an easy way to edit but nothing seems to come to mind. I think deep down I want a perfect draft and I feel my skills may not be up to stratch. Or I'm looking for a formular instead if trusting my own gut instinct.

Characters and romance

Romance. Well to be honest I thought it would be a great writing exercise. I read a few Mills and Boons of the 50,000 word vareity. I didn't think I could stomach a larger word count. Then I outlined my novel and decided to put pen to paper.

I finally finished my first draft - put away and now I feel I've  lost motivation and the characters are alien to me.

 Mills and Boon Alpha heros

My hero comes over a complete moron. Arrogrant and a bit of a sleazeball but that was what I thought most of apha-males hero were in the Mills & Boon books. I would use profanity but I've decided not to swear. And most of them just think with their pants - I'm serious. Creepy, sex-obsessed imbeciles with more money than sense. A lot of growls, scowls and lean hips. Get my drift?

Oh and they have some silly story to make them see human - some childhood trauma that made him into the uncaring dickhead he is today. Okay, I've finally pointed it out. Most of these romantic men in the catergory romantic novels I've read are dickheads. The only one who writes about real men in a distinct style is Nora Roberts - her men are cool but then she long graduated from the catergory cookie cutter hero.

The bottom line is what appealed to me when I was 17 years old doesn't appeal to me now. The excapism isn't what I what.  I guess that is the problem.


My heroine isn't any better because she is also self-obssessed about a few things.  She is a paper thin character and I need to make her more rounded.  I'm not selling my book here am I? Well that is what I'm working on now.


-----------------------------------------------------------
 Check out Bigga Day's books on

Smashwords.com
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bigga
Apple iBooks
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bigga-day/id595585425?mt=11
Barnes and Nobles
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/bigga-day
Kobo
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Bigga%20Day&fcsearchfield=Author

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Up Date on Happenings: Newly Single & 17% pay raise.

Hey Everyone, So update since my last entry. Well I had a brief fling with Mr Sexy Guy and decided he wasn't the one for me. He was cool but I learned the difference between lust, chemistry and personality. It just didn't tango for me. I'm still grossly overweight, well, fat. I don't think there is anything wrong with being called fat. I am fat. I need to lose weight but that means getting organised and stop eating delicious food. Then again my knees are hurting me and joints feel the ache. I also haven't been to the gym in three months despite paying for it. But when I do, I normally go for the sauna, hot tub and   steam room session. I've thought of cancelling the exorbitant membership but in the climate apart from bills it's the one thing that is just for me...that when I use it. Work is fine, managed to get a 17% pay raise. A big thanks to my boss who also pushed for it. It's good to work for people who support you in that matter. I think tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goals - one thing at a time - weekly or less frequent blog. Yoga was HARD! Still on track with eating plan,

Despites all my good words, I am slipping back into old bad habits and overloading myself with things to do. Distractions. Everything is important. So I've decided to get tough with myself and focus on my major goal. The one that will be most beneficial to me and a causality of that will be writing this blog daily or near daily. So I'm going to be focusing on my major goal and push myself to focus and I think all the other activities, and I mean a lot are diluting from the process. This means getting rid of non-value adding activities. Oh dear, I sound rather corporate. My week so far. If Pilate nearly killed me, then in Yoga was the firing line. OMG! What is it with these gym classes being so dynamic! When I mean dynamic I mean break-into-a-sweat dynamic. I'd never hadn't had such a difficult class - obviously I was the largest. Okay - let's go fat-shaming- don't you just love that word? I was the fattest by a long stretch. And the unfittest. My body was ou...
Post a Comment
Read more

HAPPY NEW YEAR - LET THE GOALS ROLL

Hello all. Happy New Year! So last year was awesome for me because I managed to achieve one goal. The biggest goal which was to get a new job. And that came with financial reward as well. Yay! It was hard, challenging, horrible. I hate change but I had to get out of the rut I was in. Dudes, I was desperate to move. So I dug deep, did my interview practice, attended a number of interviews and hit one. Yay. Now longer gaming. I didn't need the escapism with my new positive work environment. I also abandoned the iPhone family and went Android. To cut a long story short, I got bought an iPhone 8 but it was faulty - however Apple weren't transparent about their return policy - ALWAYS ASK ABOUT RETURN POLICY. Nor did they believe the phone was faulty. It was. Anyway I was so disgusted the arrogance of the 'apple people', I decided instead of getting a replacement to spend my money elsewhere. I'm still part of the Apple family. But the Apple Store sales assist...
1 comment
Read more