Rereading AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE

I procrastinated as long as I could this morning (albeit with useful distractions, such as changing the sheets on my bed and cleaning my kitchen), but I spent the rest of the day rereading the entire manuscript of AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE. I had not read it all in its entirety since I submitted it for the Golden Heart contest in December; after the deadline, I spent a couple of months relaxing/seeing friends/working on my query letter, and then submitted to a few agents in February. I was hearing back from them at the same time that I heard back from the Golden Heart -- and while I'm thrilled to be a finalist in the Regency category, I haven't had the same luck with agents.

The verdict after a reread? I'm really happy with it overall, particularly with the last two-thirds of the book. But, with the space and distance of a few months spent doing other things, there are a few pieces that leap out to me and begged to be changed. In particular, there are a couple of scenes that I love -- but that I should have rewritten when I did second-draft rewrites of everything else, because while I love the idea of the scene, the style no longer fits the stronger, faster style of the rest of the book.

So, I'm not in despair mode; I'm actually pretty satisfied with what I have, and I'm confident in my ability to fix the pieces I'm not satisfied with. It will require a couple of cuts, a couple of new scenes, and a couple of rewrites of existing scenes -- but I'm setting a goal of being done by mid-May so that I can start querying again before the madness of summer hits in earnest.

Now I'm off -- I'm having dinner at a friend's house, which is a welcome respite from my hermitage, even if I took the unusual route of buying dessert (tiramisu cake from Whole Foods) rather than making it myself due to a) time constraints and b) a lack of ingredients already in the house. Theoretically I should buy some groceries, but the book comes first. Have a lovely weekend!