I sent ten emails to ten authors and edited about twelve more chapters, out of sixty that need to be edited. I decided to email authors instead of historical fiction literacy agencies because there were three times in the past where the recipient agency was not able to give me their full advice due to legal restrictions. So far, one author has emailed me back with detailed advice, whereas another, their assistant responded with a brief email that they could not respond unless it was a business inquiry.
Odder yet, somehow (absent from my list of emailed authors and ones I needed to email), I unbeknownst emailed a healthcare company employee with my pitch about the requested advice. The poor woman, in short, was very confused, but I sent a reply email back quickly explaining the error. To elaborate on the email I received back, it was from Paula McLain, best-selling author of the famous Paris Wife, who insisted that I “embed” myself in my character’s point of view. While short, the email was meaningful and deep in its concepts. I was more pleased that a best-selling New York Times author had replied to the email of a mere ninth-grader. My week was a busy one and filled with good progress. A picture of Paula McLain can be seen in the blog post here (click on the social icon to contact her).
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I edited my book more this week, first, focusing on Alonzo Brown, my African-American character. It was a lighter week with my Genius Hour workload. My mother, the author of Getting It Right the Second Time Around, started editing with me, diving deep into the context of the words and their meaning. It is very important to get the least number of words that mean the most. No one wants to read a long novel when they can read a shorter one with the exact same story line and, perhaps, even better writing. Anyways, I really like editing because it forces me to look deep into the characters and understand them more. It is frustrating slightly because editing is tedious, but it is also fun to reread your work. A picture of Jennifer Frank and her book can be seen to the left. I finished my novel on February 5, at 7:26 p.m. It was exhilarating, yet bittersweet to be done with the novel that had required so much of my time. After completing the novel, I began editing a chapter a day while confirming all of the dates listed in the novel to make sure there wasn’t an obscure anomaly that might threw my reader or a historian off.
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AuthorNatalie Frank is a published author who strives to capture unwritten history in a meaningful way. View her "About" page for more! Archives
April 2019
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