Murder and Mayhem: How to wrestle an Out of Control Novel

I have no friggin' clue frankly. I say that because I'm sitting here at work, struggling to cut 100 pages out of my novel, Nearly Famous. This is a book that I've worked on, on and off for the past four years. In the interim, I've written three other manuscripts, but this is the one that I keep coming back too.

I guess you could call it the book of my heart. After every other manuscript, I come back to it, putting into practice the things that I've learned from the other books that I've written. Pacing, plotting, characterization. With each book I write, or each book I read, I learn just a little bit more.

This is the last stand for this book. After these revisions, I plan on having a professional editor critique it. From there I will make one last set of revisions, start querying various agents, and start submitting.

And then I'm done. Finished. It's over. If no one wants this baby, I'm putting it away for good. It's had a nice run but it'll be time to move on to new and hopefully better ideas.

So far, in this go round, I've manged to cut almost 60 pages out of the book. I'm hoping to cut another twenty more before I'm done. Hoping is the operative word here. At least, right now, it's more manageable then it's been. I feel the pacing is tighter, and I've cut the most egregious crap that I've written.

However, it still needs some work, strengthening the glue that binds the chapters. Now comes that fun game called "Is this scene necessary?"

"Obstacles for $100 Alex!"

"Objectives for $200."

I have a list of ten agents that I'm sending the book to. So far it's been rejected by eight agents, so all told I could be looking at another ten rejections. I'm so optimistic! But actually I am. Diana Peterfreund collected 18 rejections before she finally got an agent and sold her first book in a two book deal within two weeks! Check it out on her blog.

I feel that this book has a home out there somewhere. I just have to find it.

I just took this quiz over at ok cupid

The Liberal Beauty
You scored 82 looks, 96 personality, 38 politics, and 79 sex drive!

You're beautiful, you have a great personality, and youre highly sexual. You're a liberal with your views and you don't put morals before everything. You're probably a great wife or girlfriend, and you know how to make sure that the ones you love are happy. You're probably fun in a conversation and I'm sure that you are as loveable as you are beautiful.