Mini Manuscript Assessment

Hello again

Today my mini manuscript assessment from Vignette Press arrived. It was about some of my short stories included in Daisy Chains the collection I sold earlier this year. The assessment was very good. It contains a lot of encouraging information about your writing as well as the problems and areas that need to be addressed.

There was some very valuable feedback set out in detail for me. I would recommend getting a mini assessment from Vignette or other organisations that do them. I have not had any from other companies so I cannot compare but I did think what I got was profitible for me to move forward as an artist.

What I have taken away from this assessment is that I need to keep working on my novel. I am definitely taking the comments and advice on board and will be implementing these elements in future pieces. Overall, I am really glad I got this assessment done. It helped me to see some of my strengths and weaknesses and has caused me to focus my efforts a little more in certain areas of my work.

To write or not to write...

Hello again

I think every writer questions whether they are doing the right thing in devoting their time to writing. It is probably the same with any artistic field, as there are little or slow rewards for creating art. In the ABC short story competition I participated in recently, one of the winners talked about how she felt torn between her family, working and writing. I have heard other authors say the same thing, they questioned what they were doing constantly. Writing can present so many frustrations, but if you have an overwhelming urge to create you will not be able to give it up.

When you start to take your art more seriously it becomes more obvious that there is a lot of work and pain involved. Tangible results may or may not eventuate. One never knows. You always hope, but in art you can never guarantee it. No one really knows if they will ever be recognised by anyone or indeed if they should be.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Thanks for reading.