So I heard back from Laurie Marshall, my workshop mate that read Hurricane Baby. We swapped manuscripts–I read her fiction chapbook and read mine. She did a wonderful job with feedback–giving me notes in the manuscript, then writing me a document that noted big trends and suggestions for throughout the manuscript.
It was all very positive and uplifting with a lot of practical advice sandwiched in that I agree with. A few things are issues I always struggle with, like descriptions of settings and characters. I try every manuscript to get better at that and am glad when someone can push me to get even better at it because I know I struggle with it.
But the cast of characters is set, the plot is set, and the form is set. So that represents a huge advance in the process. She only judged one story as being much weaker than the others, and it was among one of the last I wrote, so I’m not surprised. It’s the last section of Tommy Hebert and Cindi Delafosse’s story, the new arc I added in this revision.
Tommy’s Hurricane Katrina story opens with him doing rescue work throughout the parish, and the subsequent drinking problem he develops after seeing a scene that scars him for life. I plan to plant the seeds for the resolution that is in that story earlier in the timeline throughout the other stories in that arc and plan to put in as much work as possible to bring that arc up to the standards of the others. I’m looking forward to starting Monday on the revisions!
Julie Liddell Whitehead 