What to do when your WIP isn't playing ball OR In praise of wonderful critique partners

Available Ellora's Cave

By Beverley Oakley

What do you do when you're convinced your WIP is rubbish?

The question really should read, "What am *I* going to do?"

Yes, trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse is my problem right now, and one of my ways around it is to do absolutely anything except work on it.

I've written 62,000 words to complete my first draft. It has a beginning, middle and end. But there's so much that's not working.

Book 1 in the series just came out on Friday and I'm really pleased with Her Gilded Prison. It's a poignant, passionate erotic Historical.

Now I'm taking up the story of my heroine's daughter, a very lovely, worthy heroine in her own right who lands up in some unusual and unexpected trouble.

But is it working?

I would say not. I would say I have an awful lot of work to do on it, but can I force myself to the page?
Right now I'm torn between:

The Passive Approach: Burying my head under the covers and declaring I'll never write another word;

The dramatic Approach: Tossing my printed manuscript from a high balcony and damning those failed pages as they are removed forever from my life by the wind;

The Indulgent Approach: Eating and drinking a lot of things that are really bad for me;

OR

The Sensible Approach: Sending it to my critique partners.

So, now that I've slept off the Indulgent Approach by employing the Passive Approach, I have mounted the stairs to the balcony off my tower room, and with a stiff breeze blowing, am about to take the Dramatic Approach.

Wait, just a moment! It's my mobile.

What? Jess, Bernie, Frances on a conference call?

Goodness, they've tracked me using satellite and they know what I'm about to do.

They say they've all been there before. That every writer has.

(I must say, I'm getting a little emotional here because of all the other nice, sensible things they're saying, too.)

Really? Oh, those are wise words, indeed.

They're saying that if I managed to knock Her Gilded Prison into shape I can do the same with Hetty's Story (known more formally as Two Dangerous Gentlemen). They're saying that I must take the Sensible Approach and send it to them to sort out. They'll tell me exactly where I'm going wrong.

The wind is threatening to tug the pages out of my hand but I'm gripping the manuscript more tightly now. The reams of notes in the margin represent weeks of work. I realise can't afford to waste that much effort by casting it to the wind.

Not when I have such great critique partners who can sense when I need a pick-me-up and who take action. Not when I have such skilled critique partners who can hone in on the trouble spots and tell me where and what I need to fix.

Jess, Bernie and Frances - my wonderful critique partners - what would I do without you?

Photo of Australian Readers Convention Authors

Here are the 60 or so authors at ARRC (Australian Romance Readers Association). I'm in the orange dress in the back row.

The whole weekend was huge fun and I loved meeting readers and fellow authors so much that I'm off to Kansas City, Missouri, in May for the Romantic Times Convention where I'll meet my publishers at Choc-Lit, Ellora's Cave and Total-e-Bound.

Her Gilded Prison is now available

By Beverley Oakley

I've never considered writing an older woman/younger man story of forbidden love but this one just flew off the page.

Initially my younger, 24-year-old hero, Stephen Cranbourne, is like any Regency buck who gets a chance with the ladies. But as the story unfolds, we discover there's far more to him than meets the eye.

Here's my blurb:

HER GILDED PRISON
Lovely Lady Sybil thought life had left her behind ...

But the moment her husband's nephew arrives as heir apparent and prospective suitor to their vibrant daughter, Araminta, nothing goes to plan.

          AND

Lovely, unloved Lady Sybil is considered a failed wife by her husband when he summons his young cousin, Stephen, as prospective heir.

But when the viscounts' nephew, cabbage headed Edgar, pitches up as next claimant to the title, Lady Sybil realises she must devise a daring plan to save the estate.

In his wildest dreams, Cousin Stephen never expected his duties would be so diverse.

You can read more here.