So Why Am I Waiting?

Good question.

Divine intervention?  The planets to align?  To win the lottery?  For Gerard Butler to knock on my door and swagger off with me? 

Hmmmm now that last one has its merits but.........

Alas none of these answers is the truth.  The truth is I am waiting to submit my chapter into the New Voices competition because I have a massive case of the 'not readies'.  Not just the oh-I'll-just-nip-to-the-loo-to-put-off-the-ineviatable-for-a-few-minutes type stalling.  Nope.  This is the serious stuff.  The hands-and-feet-gripping-the-doorframe-while-two-big-burly-bald-guys-try-and-pull-you-through type stalling.  This is the big time.

I suppose the next question is: why?

Bear with me here - when I heard that NV was running again I decided this time that I was going to make the most of the four weeks we had to enter, so I could read responses and guage reader's reactions to entries.  I could take advantage of the feedback that the other writers got and apply it to my work.  Imagine my delight when I found out that some of the mentors were commenting.  I was like that sneaky creepy kid in movies, lurking in the shadows, rubbing my hands together in glee at the thought of getting all those free hints and tips.  It was like getting being handed half the answers to a really important test.

But now I'm addicted.  I'm reading comments more than I am the entries (although I am trying to read lots of them too - especially after I read on the Fb site that someone had found a storyline similar to theirs and was now busy rewriting their chapter).  And then M&B unknowingly enabled my addiction further by publishing an ebook: Secrets Uncovered. Blogs, Hints and THE INSIDE SCOOP from M&B editors and authors (capitalisation is mine).  It was like hitting the mother load.

Now I had THE INSIDE SCOOP.  I felt like Charlie when he found that golden ticket in his chocolate bar.  I opened the document and you can't imagine my disappointment when I didn't read:

Dear Elissa,
Here is what you were looking for:
Chapter One: What To Write If You Want Us To Notice You (and maybe ask to see more of your work)
Chapter Two: What To Write If You Want To Make The Top Twenty
Chapter Three: What To Write If You Want To Win
Thank You
Sincerely Yours
The M&B Team

I promise I was just going to read the first chapter.  Instead there was just lots and lots of great information and hints and tips.  Actually now that I come to think of it - kinda exactly what the title suggested was in there.  Utterly fabulous but not what I had hoped for.

I have revised and rewritten and edited and proofed and scrutinised and deconstructed and I still can't say I'm satisfied with a FINAL version.  There's always one more tweak, one word added, one taken away, one substituted for a better one - it never ends.  And this is just the first chapter.

So I guess I'm going to have set a final deadline (confession: it was supposed to be the 27th but then I found out about the ebook but more importantly I began thinking that my chapter didn't have a drop dead gorgeous opening line that would mark it instantly as suitable for the Passion line so I started writing something else..............yes yes I know - forgive me Father for I have sinned *sigh*).  Well I've parked the new book and come back to the original and now I am giving myself one more day.

Tomorrow afternoon is D-Day.  Zero hour.  Da limit.

Maybe waiting for Gerard will be easier .....