Are you writing the Breakout or Break-In Novel?

I'm attempting to do both.

Since I'm not published yet, I figure the best chance I have of writing a Break-In novel is to aim for a Breakout novel. Once I'm published, then I'll aim to write yet another Breakout novel that will see a sore in my readership.

On my last post I received some comments referencing Rachelle Gardner's post on writing the Break-In novel. With each comment I thought to myself, "But isn't one great way to write the Break-In novel by striving to write a Breakout novel? Cause, in effect, if we're not published yet, even our first published novel, the break-in novel by Rachelle Gardner's definition, is in fact for us a breakout novel, since presumably we'll be going from 0 readership to at least two or three readers. Right? And that's a 200 to 300% increase in readership. That's not a bad increase for a new writer in my books." (And, yes, this is how I think in my head. I go on and on. It's scary really! And I often make little sense too.)

So, since I missed Rachelle Gardner's post while away, I jumped over and found it for my personal viewing. If you haven't already read it, check it out here.

I'm hating blogger these days. It's refusing to allow me to copy and paste with the cntrl c and v feature, with the exception of hyperlinks. What I wanted to copy and paste in here is Gardner's second last paragraph in that post. The five line paragraph that confirmed my ranting thoughts. Even the beginner can use Maass' concepts and guidance in his book Writing the Breakout Novel to create what Rachelle Gardner calls the Break-In novel. Alas, my study of Writing the Breakout Novel will not be in vain. There is value in it after all, even for someone who hasn't Broken-In yet!

If I've learned nothing else in my six-year writing journey thus far, it is that I must keep striving for perfection in order to improve just a little. Funny thing is, the more I learn and apply, the more I discover I still need to grasp and perfect! I've picked the perfect career for preventing Alzheimer's (I read somewhere that learning, keeping your brain gears active, is a natural preventative of Alzheimer's), cause learning to write better never ends, even after the Break-In and then the Breakout novel, because you can always strive for your next biggest Breakout novel. Talk about the journey that never ends!

Anyway, here's a Donald Maass quote to ponder today: "What the inexperienced novelist has not yet learned is how to make all that vivid stuff as vivid to the reader as it is in the writer's mind." (Pg. 40 Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass.)

Are you like me, something seems so vivid to you in your head, that you think you've caught it on the page, but in reality, to the average reader, you haven't?

Surrendering to Him,

Eileen