I did it!

I hit send yesterday evening and the partial of Beneath the Ionian Sun is now hopefully, finally, sitting in the editor's inbox. And not in her spam filter. Or email heaven. Or the hundred and one other places lost submissions go. Me, anxious?

Chapter Three

I’ve been toiling away at polishing Chapters 2 and 3 of Beneath the Ionian Sun for what feels like weeks now, in anticipation of finally getting another submission out there. The reason for the toiling was because I just couldn’t get Chapter 3 to sparkle.

This is the all-important end point the editor is going to read up to, so of course I want this chapter to end on a high note. Except that the sparkly dialogue and pivotal decision were sitting at the end of Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 was more of a bridging chapter.

Re-write after re-write just hasn’t worked, so in pursuit of a solution I re-read the third chapters of all my favourite category novels. Without exception, every single one had a pivotal point in which the stakes were raised.

It took me until just a few days ago to realise what I had to do: swap the chapters around.

So simple! Why couldn’t I have figured that out weeks ago?

Now I’ve cut and pasted sentences all over the place, rewritten so that the chapters flow nicely and Voila! It works. Chapter 2 now bridges the gap, as the characters get to know one another better. Chapter 3 has them facing a major decision and ends on a high point.

Expect news of a submission in the near future.