Day 3 of the Dust It Off Bloghop

Can you believe it's day 3 already? I can't. I waited so long for the hop to start I can't believe it's almost over. However, day 3 is the day I have been looking forward to most. The pitches and excerpts were fantastic, far beyond anything I would have imagined and I am so curious to know what lessons you all learned. So lets get it started.

Day 3: Post what you learned from this WIP. You become a stronger, more rounded writer with (I totally wrote which on the first post. Oops) each manuscript and we want to know what this particular work taught you.

I learned so much from Prove Me Wrong where to even start. I guess with the background. Prove Me Wrong was I'd like to say the second manuscript I finished, but technically that is not true. It is the fourth. The three prior were a series of books and my first attempts at writing a complete novel. I loved those books but I believe they were meant for me and me alone. Prove Me Wrong was the one or so I thought. I read more, researched more,  basically gave it all I had. After querying my first book I was determined to get on the shelves and I honestly believed this was the book that would get me there. And it might have, but the big but. I jumped the gun. I read it over myself had a few people read it and once I got their approval I started querying. They liked the story itself, but as we as writers know, there is so much more to a book than just the story. It was riddled with mistakes, mistakes that I was blind to.

I shelved it after the twentieth or so rejection, but took it back out when I met Kelley (my CP for those that don't know). She read it sent it back to me with corrections and comments and after reading through her critique I was embarrassed that I had already sent it out to agents. What was I thinking? I wasn't. Obviously. I jumped the gun. I was so happy to write the end I never stopped to think that it needed more work. Reading it over two times didn't qualify as revising. I did give it another go, but still no bites. It was hard. It helped me build a tough skin though. I was so certain agents would love the concept and be begging to read more and when I received form rejection after form rejection I slowly began building that tough skin, the one that all writers need to have in order to survive this world.

The thing I remember most about this manuscript is the day I watched my mom read it. At the time we worked for the same company and I had printed it out and gave it to her. It was a slow work day and she had already read the first half so I stood by as she read through the second half. I was driving her crazy as I lingered over her, analyzed every face she made and kept asking if she was done yet. And I will never forget when she finished.

She looked up at me, smiled and said "This is it. This is the one." My mom had read my other manuscripts and always found something wrong with them. There was always something she didn't like or she thought needed to be overhauled. Most people think your mom will sugar coat it and make you believe you are amazing. Not my mom. She is about as honest as they come. She wouldn't let me set myself up for disappointment. I was prepared for her to say good try but it's missing something. The characters seem like cardboard cutouts. There are plot holes that need to be worked out. Not this manuscript. My mom actually told me it was the one. So as the rejections continued to come in, it hurt yes, but it didn't hurt as bad because I learned that my mom believed in me. She didn't think I was chasing an impossible dream. She believed in my manuscript and most importantly she believed in me. Out of all the lessons I have learned over the years of writing and querying I think that one is the most important.

So to sum it all up. The three things Prove Me Wrong taught me are:
1) Don't jump the gun
2) The power of a great critique partner
3) My mom has faith in me as a writer and I'm not chasing an impossible dream.

What about you? What have you learned from shelved WIP's?