Friday, September 20, 2013

Dust Off the Oldies

In case you've been living under a rock this week, Alex J. Cavanaugh's third book, CassaStorm took off in a mach speed launch. You probably saw him everywhere. Each blog he visited had a unique bit of info on Alex or his books. Lynda R. Young shared a very interesting post for Alex yesterday. He shared his story about how he never intended to write novels. Read how he pulled an old story he wrote out of a drawl, dusted it off can created his first novel. Read it here.

How many writers have stories and even complete novels sitting on a shelf or on a zip drive somewhere? Probably all of us. We left them behind because they weren't good enough or another project took us away from them. But when we created them, their characters or their plot caught our imagination.

Last year around this time, I had just signed a contract for my latest fantasy novel with Crescent Moon Press. I always clean up my writing area when I finish a project and there it was. My next project. An old manuscript, perhaps five years old, that I'd finished and set aside. I decided I would polish it, fix the weak points and see what I could do with it. I'd always like the main characters but for some reason I had set it aside.

Viola! The Marine's Queen, my bestselling novel ever, was picked up by my romance publisher. Perhaps it was the timing, genetic engineering, near the same time Star Trek Into Darkness came out. But if I hadn't dusted off that old story...

Do you have a neglected work of art waiting to be rediscovered? Did you read Alex's story over on Lynda's blog?

8 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Very cool - another old manuscript success story! We are both glad we tackled those old stories.

The Happy Whisk said...

Nothing like a good success story.

Michael Di Gesu said...

That is so awesome! Congrats, Susan!!!

My first novel needs to be re-tweaked. I know it will GO once I go through it again.

Timing is everything. Now that I can type two-handed again, I will be able to work...

Have a wonderful weekend, Susan....

Katie O'Sullivan said...

Timing is everything, as Michael said. Congrats!

Jemi Fraser said...

That's so awesome!!
I've got 3 or 4 novels on my hard drive that I wrote totally for fun with ZERO intention of ever trying for publication. Maybe one of these days I'll dust one of them off :)

Michelle Wallace said...

I have quite a few short short stories, and a slew of flash fic pieces, in various stages of production...
Writer In Transit

Cate Masters said...

Very cool Susan! It's great to come across those oldies. I have notebooks and notebooks of ideas and half-started stories.

Natalie Aguirre said...

I enjoyed reading Alex's posts and learning more about how he got back into writing.

Good luck with the project. You're giving me hope that I may be able to pull mine back out one day.