#veiding

It was postponed until today!!

But now it’s done and it went really well and she loved what I had so far and had a few pointers going forward and we also set a deadline for a completed manuscript by the first week of march.

So now I gotta lock in and write a book in three months!!

I've drawn again for the first time in a long time and I made character sketches for Veiding

rules: open your pinterest account, and copy the first six images that come up from the home screen. what does it say about you? is this an accurate perception?

tagged by the bewitching @bubblemoons 🔮

So, yeah, I use pinterest mostly for writing stuff these days, but I didn't know I had skewed the algorithm this badly with my latest project. Honestly, it's a vibe. I like it.

Thank you 💕 I'm a bit hung-up on my original project right now, so here's a passage from Veiding:

----

Sigrid knelte ned ved hodet til søya, la fra seg rifla forsiktig ved siden av, og tok kniven fra Toralf. En av bestefar sine, rettslipt og velholdt, og den lå godt i hånda hennes selv om den veide mindre enn hun hadde regnet med. Mindre enn den burde, kanskje. Det var fordelen med rifla, tenkte hun, at vekta sto i stil med oppdraget. At den tynget deg ned, spiste seg inn i skuldra di, brente musklene i armene dine, og slo hardt tilbake når du fyrte et skudd. Noe som virket mer rettferdig, mer verdig, enn et glattpolert metallblad. Hun lente seg fram, prøvde å overse stanken av møkk og dødsangst mens sauen breket og sparket og skrek, og gled kniven gjennom hovedpulsåra uten noe spesiell motstand.

Sigrid knelt down by the ewe's head, carefully laid the rifle aside, and took the knife from Toralf. One of her grandfather's, sharp and well-kept, and it lay comfortably in her hand even though it weighed less than she had expected. Less than it should, perhaps. That was the advantage of the rifle, she thought, that its heft matched its task. That it weighed you down, gnawed into your shoulders, burned the muscles in your arms, and recoiled hard when you fired a shot. Something that seemed fairer and more dignified than a sleek polished blade. She leaned forward, trying to ignore the stench of dung and death fear as the sheep bleated and kicked and screamed, and slid the knife through the main artery without any particular resistance.

----

nnnnghhh yes.

On one hand I love to talk about my writing projects, but on another I'm always scared to be judged based on the original stuff. I don't know why exactly, my writing confidence comes and goes.

Aaaanyway, I have two projects in Norwegian I'm working on at the same time right now (because I'm indecisive like that):

Do you mind me asking what you had to show to "convince" her for the book (maybe) deal? Like did you have an outline, a few chapters, maybe scenes that are later in the book, etc? Did she give pointers?

Also how is it going with the typing machine? 👀👀👀 Do you plan on writing your first draft on it?

Thank you!

Okay, so this whole thing started when I applied to a writing school hosted by one of the biggest publishing houses in my country and I submitted 15 pages of my writing for the application. I didn't make the cut there, but someone on the panel sent those 15 pages to an editor in the kids and youth department since I had submitted the start of a YA novel and she loved it so much she reached out.

She wanted to meet right away "just to talk", but also read more if I had written anything so I sent her the next 15 pages I had written for that novel and a synopsis that detailed the big twist and the planned ending, just to show that I had a direction for it.

And to be clear, there is no deal or even a promise that this will definitely get published if I finish it. I guess you could say it's implied, but I was not expecting anything solid and we didn't even touch upon that during the meeting. But I got feedback that they really love the concept, what I have so far, and the direction that I'm planning to take it--which is really encouraging to hear from someone who publish books for a living and definitely more than most writers get as publishers tend to only want completed manuscripts.

Then she asked me how long I thought I would need to finish the novel, we agreed on a short-ish deadline just so I have something to work toward and that we'd have a meeting around that time to assess progress no matter how far I get. And if I happen to visit the capital city before that she wanted to meet in person to get to know me better. And she really pressed how much she loved it so far and wants me to finish the novel, so I'm trying my best to take this as a win, I guess?

Anyway, the pointers were mostly for the opening chapters and how to navigate the niche subject for those who aren't familiar with it. And I also got to ask a bunch of technical questions about publishing and the process, which was really interesting. Like, they estimate a full year between a completed manuscript and publishing, and most novels go through 6-7 rounds of editing after the writer submits what they consider a polished script.

Also, yeah, I've written a bunch on the typewriter already! I'm not sure I'll write the entire first draft on it, but it's a really great tool to get unstuck because there's no backspace and I just have to keep on writing. (Also it's super motivating and immersive and I loooove taking a completed page out of the typewriter and then watching the pages stack up next to me). For now, my method is that I finish a scene/chapter, make notes in the margins, and then type it up on my computer. 10 pages from the typewriter typically turns into 15 pages when I get it typed up including the notes.

Sigrid - the daughter