A hint and a lot of other rambling

I see from her blog that Donna followed my lead in getting her MS (a pretty dang funny story, by the way, at least what I've seen) printed and punched at Office Depot. Wait, I haven't done it yet, so she's the leader now!

Instead, I spent a whole afternoon making a "minor" change to the WIP (work-in-progress!). Wait, I'm not finished yet.

Because . . . that minor change entails revisiting every page of the story. I made it through about 150 today. A lot more to go.

Many published writers, but not so many pre-pubbed ones, drop hints about their WIPs (there's that funny word again! But you know it now, right?). I have avoided this like the proverbial plague because it was really important to me to keep this story very close to my heart for a good, long time.

I've been seriously sidetracked on previous efforts--to the point of giving up on the story. For good reasons every time, but with this one, I knew I had a unique premise, if such a thing exists. (It's at least a unique twist if not premise.) I didn't want to get discouraged before I had the first full draft written. I'm to the point now where you can tell me every which way but lose what is wrong with this story, and I'll probably take your advice seriously to heart, and then I'll revise until I'm blue in the face to get it right. Then this puppy is going out on submission.

So (sit up, take notice), here's my first little bit of real info about the story. The only other thing I've shared is that, in the words of Diane, it's s-e-r-i-o-u-s. If you can believe it. Anyway, one of my point-of-view characters is deaf. Or hearing impaired, hearing challenged, whichever politically correct term you prefer. He can't hear. Not at all. Wait, that's TWO hints. Now you know he's a he, too!

I tell you this because I've really struggled to wrap my head around the write, oops, RIGHT way to show the dialogue that's not spoken, but signed. And there's lots of it. Lots. I've checked out as many books from the library as I could that had deaf characters. There are NOT many, let me tell you. There doesn't seem to be any uniform method, and there are problems with each.

My only-est reader so far (Hi, Gail!), who saw the first couple of chapters about a year ago, struggled with the method I originally chose, so I knew this was an obstacle I would need to get around before I could pass the story on to many others. Identifying the best method--one that allows the story to flow seamlessly and engages the reader--will be a huge relief.

I said all that to say that I spent today changing every instance (so far) of this dialogue to a new method. I think it works better. Please, God, in the chosen Lennon/McCartney lyrics of my favorite girl AI contestant, Brooke, "Let it be." (I likes me some folkies--Can we all say Jason and sigh in unison?)

Next stop, Office Depot.

EDIT! So, this morning, I remembered I have another book (on hand!) with a character who uses ASL (as does mine). I look at it, and her dialogue is done exactly the way I HAD it, and it actually worked pretty well. Gaaaaaah . . . What to do? The book, by the way, is Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson, and was very good. She has another that just launched--The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. Her blog today just might make you laugh!