Progress Report on Save The Last Dance For Me

After months of a fairly radical rewrite of certain parts of Save The Last Dance For Me, I have finally printed off all 323 pages (91,000+ words) and sent them to the New Writers Scheme of the Romantic Novelists' Association. This is the third time I have had it critiqued and, as such, will be the last. I wait with baited breath the ensuing report.

One of the changes I made was to the title. It is now called A Suitable Young Man. Which of course my hero is definitely not! This is because he has a rival who is definitely A Suitable Young Man.  As the novel is set in the mid 1950s when mothers were definitely keen on their daughters finding and settling down with A Suitable Young Man. Back then, if you weren't courting seriously or engaged to be married, you were considered to be 'On The Shelf'. Sounds archaic now, but that was how it was then. 

I'm now looking forward to getting back to my follow-on novel, Bittersweet Fellowship. It will be good getting to know my characters again.

Update on Save The Last Dance For Me

Phew! Good news, I have finally finished the latest rewrite/edit on Save The Last Dance For Me. It has been quite an effort mainly because, as I reported last year, I needed to rewrite the time line and add quite a few new scenes. My next step is to rewrite the synopsis to fit in with the new timeline. Synopses are not the easiest things to write. One has to write in the present tense and somehow encapsulate the essence of the plot without giving too much away. 

Once I have done that, I will be sending it off (for the last time) to the New Writers' Scheme of the Romantic Novelists' Association in order for this latest version to be assessed by one of their readers. It will be an interesting wait to see if this latest rewrite works. Watch this space ...

Other news on the RNA front is that I have once again booked for the Conference to take place in July at the University of Sheffield. I'm looking forward to that, especially as it's practically on my doorstep this year, Sheffield only being about 15 miles away from where I live.