As promised, Mesh has gone through another round of edits and now it’s ready for presentation to new lit agents. The changes made to Mesh and the process of these edits reminded of something: forging and shaping steel into a sword. Watch this cool video, and then I’ll explain what I mean:
What you may have noticed at 3:37 of the video is how the blacksmith had to go back again and again to heat, shape, re-heat, and re-shape the steel until the design matched his expectations. Sure, there were plenty of times where he could have said ‘done, good enough.’
However the blacksmith has his standards, and when it comes to writing I have mine. Yes, I thought Mesh was done before, but when it was obvious there were things that could be better, I have no choice. I have to go back and re-shape the material, especially if I expect my ‘blade’ to survive the battle.
Forging and shaping Mesh has other benefits: the feedback received now shows Mesh is a high-MG/low-YA novel, not just a YA novel as previously thought. I wasn’t aware that there was such a strong distinction, but there is and it means life-or-death to an agent query. (Click here to read more about why that matters)
So in a nutshell, Mesh is ready for viewing (again). I sincerely hope that the book is ready for the next phase of the journey, but I have to be ready to go back to the forge if it’s not. Thumbs up!