Boneman
Well-Known Member
Some of you might have seen Lady of Winterfell's posting on 18th January (General Book Discussion) about Patrick's auction and raffles for the Charity Heifer International. Check it out here: www.heifer.org
Because I'm a big fan of Patrick's I'd been following his blogs, and knew that one item (amongst hundreds) he was auctioning, in aid of the charity, was a complete critique of your novel, by the man himself. Naturally I assumed it was going to be stratospheric, and didn't bid. Unknown to me, my son alerted my wife and she got up at 3.40 in the morning to bid for this item and won it... You can imagine how I felt about this as a Christmas present!
So Pat emailed and said he was pretty tied up (finishing his edit of book 2) but would be free about the end of February. Did I mention what I'd won? I was to send my complete manuscript of the whole novel to Pat, he would print it out, scribble his thoughts all over the margins, and then call me up and we'd go through it for a couple of hours... Then he'd send me the manuscript, for me to peruse further. Hell, I paid almost £600 for a critique from The Literary Consultancy couple of years ago, got back 12 pages of comments and suggestions and thought it was money well spent, so this was just incredible.
So it's the end of December and I start editing, tweaking, re-editing, (my writing group were brilliant in helping), panicking, re-editing to get the most out of the opportunity, which is pretty much once-in-a-lifetime. Not only is Pat an International Bestselling Author, he teaches writing at University level, and I was determined to put everything into it.
Pat was a little taken aback by the fact that he now had to call England, but I found a site that gave phone calls to the USA for 0.5p per minute. I reckoned, on the current exchange rates, that 120 minutes would set me back about 50 pence. Pat didn't see through my cunning plan to obtain his phone number, and sent it to me...
So, the day drew near and I wouldn't say I got nervous: it was a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I was determined not to let myself down, but once I'd sent it off, I didn't dare look at the manuscript again in case I saw a really basic error, that I'd missed.
On Friday 5th March at 6pm I called Patrick Rothfuss. I called Patrick Rothfuss - I had to repeat that, it still sounds so unbelieveable. He's six hours behind, so it was midday for him. I'm pretty sure I gabbled like an idiot to start with, anybody listening would have heard it. But then we chatted for a while, and he told me about how it went with his book, and the amount of re-writes he'd had to do, some of the changes he'd made, bits deleted, bits added. I'm sure he did it so I could talk intelligently (!) once I'd got over my jitters at 'being on the phone with Patrick Rothfuss, and talking about my book'. I won't repeat that sentence, but I could. Three or four times. At least.
Now the deal was, we'd talk for a couple of hours. After three hours, my phone cut off - I think it's an automechanism to save the phone company. I called him back and we agreed a tea-break was needed - he'd done most of the talking, with me trying to sound intelligent. So after 20 minutes I called again and we talked for another two and a quarter hours...
He went through the whole book with me, pointing out areas that needed some work, making suggestions of how a scene could work better, focusing me on the book in a way I hadn't considered before. I got writer's cramp getting it all down, and was typing on my own manuscript as we spoke.
One of the revelations for me was when he asked: "What exactly do you want the story to do? What is important, how are you going to 'pay' the reader? Action? Mystery, and solving it? Romance? Sex? Revelations of an interesting and unique world? Character arc? Cool special effects?" Because (and I see it now! Doh!) my book didn't channel in any particular direction, it had all of the above, but lost focus. Then he suggested a way I could do precisely that, regain that focus, and show the reader whose story it was by tying their interest down to the most important character, allowing them to take centre stage in a way that drove the story on.
We covered so much, and there's still his nitpicks to come, scrawled all over the script he printed out. Five and a quarter hours of his time, and written comments too. A bargain? Absolutely.
And there's another thing: Patrick paid good money to do this... he contributes a further 50% of his own money for everything he raises for Heifer. It's one thing as a Bestselling Author to donate signed first editions, goodies galore (and there were loads, see his blog www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/blog.html ) and it's another thing entirely to go as far as Patrick does.
Do I have a hero? Yes, I do.
Is it Patrick Rothfuss? Yes, it is.
And because I asked, Patrick may give me a jacket blurb, when I've sold the book, and if he likes it enough to do so. Do I think I've moved closer to that magic moment? Yes I do - serious work ahead, and many more revisions to come, but this experience has been one of the best in my life - certainly the most awesome of my writing life; it ranks up there with most of the events that are meaningful in my life, and I couldn't thank Patrick enough.
So if you want to see why Patrick does this amazing event every year - we all have a chance next time - check out the charity that has benefitted from his amazing generosity. I know you didn't click on the first link, so here it is again. www.heifer.org
ps; I slept really well the night before the phone call, but when I put the phone down, it was 12.30 before I got into bed, happily exhausted. I woke at 5am, with my mind buzzing.
Because I'm a big fan of Patrick's I'd been following his blogs, and knew that one item (amongst hundreds) he was auctioning, in aid of the charity, was a complete critique of your novel, by the man himself. Naturally I assumed it was going to be stratospheric, and didn't bid. Unknown to me, my son alerted my wife and she got up at 3.40 in the morning to bid for this item and won it... You can imagine how I felt about this as a Christmas present!
So Pat emailed and said he was pretty tied up (finishing his edit of book 2) but would be free about the end of February. Did I mention what I'd won? I was to send my complete manuscript of the whole novel to Pat, he would print it out, scribble his thoughts all over the margins, and then call me up and we'd go through it for a couple of hours... Then he'd send me the manuscript, for me to peruse further. Hell, I paid almost £600 for a critique from The Literary Consultancy couple of years ago, got back 12 pages of comments and suggestions and thought it was money well spent, so this was just incredible.
So it's the end of December and I start editing, tweaking, re-editing, (my writing group were brilliant in helping), panicking, re-editing to get the most out of the opportunity, which is pretty much once-in-a-lifetime. Not only is Pat an International Bestselling Author, he teaches writing at University level, and I was determined to put everything into it.
Pat was a little taken aback by the fact that he now had to call England, but I found a site that gave phone calls to the USA for 0.5p per minute. I reckoned, on the current exchange rates, that 120 minutes would set me back about 50 pence. Pat didn't see through my cunning plan to obtain his phone number, and sent it to me...
So, the day drew near and I wouldn't say I got nervous: it was a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I was determined not to let myself down, but once I'd sent it off, I didn't dare look at the manuscript again in case I saw a really basic error, that I'd missed.
On Friday 5th March at 6pm I called Patrick Rothfuss. I called Patrick Rothfuss - I had to repeat that, it still sounds so unbelieveable. He's six hours behind, so it was midday for him. I'm pretty sure I gabbled like an idiot to start with, anybody listening would have heard it. But then we chatted for a while, and he told me about how it went with his book, and the amount of re-writes he'd had to do, some of the changes he'd made, bits deleted, bits added. I'm sure he did it so I could talk intelligently (!) once I'd got over my jitters at 'being on the phone with Patrick Rothfuss, and talking about my book'. I won't repeat that sentence, but I could. Three or four times. At least.
Now the deal was, we'd talk for a couple of hours. After three hours, my phone cut off - I think it's an automechanism to save the phone company. I called him back and we agreed a tea-break was needed - he'd done most of the talking, with me trying to sound intelligent. So after 20 minutes I called again and we talked for another two and a quarter hours...
He went through the whole book with me, pointing out areas that needed some work, making suggestions of how a scene could work better, focusing me on the book in a way I hadn't considered before. I got writer's cramp getting it all down, and was typing on my own manuscript as we spoke.
One of the revelations for me was when he asked: "What exactly do you want the story to do? What is important, how are you going to 'pay' the reader? Action? Mystery, and solving it? Romance? Sex? Revelations of an interesting and unique world? Character arc? Cool special effects?" Because (and I see it now! Doh!) my book didn't channel in any particular direction, it had all of the above, but lost focus. Then he suggested a way I could do precisely that, regain that focus, and show the reader whose story it was by tying their interest down to the most important character, allowing them to take centre stage in a way that drove the story on.
We covered so much, and there's still his nitpicks to come, scrawled all over the script he printed out. Five and a quarter hours of his time, and written comments too. A bargain? Absolutely.
And there's another thing: Patrick paid good money to do this... he contributes a further 50% of his own money for everything he raises for Heifer. It's one thing as a Bestselling Author to donate signed first editions, goodies galore (and there were loads, see his blog www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/blog.html ) and it's another thing entirely to go as far as Patrick does.
Do I have a hero? Yes, I do.
Is it Patrick Rothfuss? Yes, it is.
And because I asked, Patrick may give me a jacket blurb, when I've sold the book, and if he likes it enough to do so. Do I think I've moved closer to that magic moment? Yes I do - serious work ahead, and many more revisions to come, but this experience has been one of the best in my life - certainly the most awesome of my writing life; it ranks up there with most of the events that are meaningful in my life, and I couldn't thank Patrick enough.
So if you want to see why Patrick does this amazing event every year - we all have a chance next time - check out the charity that has benefitted from his amazing generosity. I know you didn't click on the first link, so here it is again. www.heifer.org
ps; I slept really well the night before the phone call, but when I put the phone down, it was 12.30 before I got into bed, happily exhausted. I woke at 5am, with my mind buzzing.
