Imagery

Got my critique back pretty recently, a few days back, and it's high time to share.
Geez, first of all, gotta tell ya I never thought it'd come out that positive. You know, I was thinking it would just be a load of hints and tips or even remarks on stuff that I'd gotten wrong, but do you believe it? There weren't that many of those! Those that were "remarks" or whatever, were more like tips, in all, it was like, splendid reading. Has to be my best investment, ever. One of the tips she gave me, the critic, was hand in hand with something she thought I was good at, and still it was one of the best writing tips I've ever received. I'm definitely gonna think about it while I finish the rest of the story.
Just for my ego's sake, as much as for your curiosity, I'll go over a few things she brought up. For example, my title is "catchy" and she was "impressed with this choice of title" which by the way "conveys the information in the manuscript". My opening sentences are "powerful" and makes "an excellent beginning". My dialogue is "nice work" and "sounds natural and appropriate to (my) characters". And here's a thought, for me who figured I'd get a lot of remarks on punctuation and stuff: "Your grammar, spelling, and punctuation are all quite satisfactory. Congratulations!" Well, I'm not saying I didn't get any remarks on this, but it just isn't fun for any of us should I tell you my misspellings. All these remarks, however, barely even filled one page. That's pretty good for a 100 page manuscript, right? If all the mistakes in it barely fills an A4 in Word? Well, I sure think so. Other than this, she carried on to tell me about how a standard manuscript is often required to look like, what margins there should be, and chapters beginning on new pages, and that there should be a header on each page with the author's last name and the title of the novel. Really good tips, I'm glad I got them; soon as the story is underway I'll go through the process of fixing it up like this.
So, very positive this far in the critique, but there's more to come. Here're the sentences that just blew me away:

"I feel that no illustrations are needed for this adult fiction manuscript. The text provides a clear image of characters, settings and events. Nice work. The imagery is fantastic."

And here follows her conclusion:

"I believe you can turn this into a marketable story. It has all of the necessary elements: good characterization; interesting (and well-described) settings; and authentic-sounding dialogue. This is an interesting piece of work and I can see it becoming great. The characters are strong and I like the plot. I am impressed so far. I sincerely wish you luck with this endeavor."

Even now, when I've read these words more than a million times, it almost brings tears to my eyes. Finally, it feels as if all my writing through all these years is finally going to pay off. It simply means so much that someone who doesn't even know me as a person, someone who simply has read the text, but whose job it is to evaluate texts; has graded it this good. I can't even explain it. I feel as if I've won a big trophy or something, like I wanna go out and shout and just celebrate...! And suddenly all I wanna do is throw my schoolbooks out the bloody window and get started again. I have so much to write, so much to give. And I know that if I sit down now, without planning anything, but just throwing myself into the writing, it'll be like back in Nano. The most spontaneous bits are amazingly, the ones that are the best, those I've struggled to scribble down is like a spit in the sea in comparison. But in any case, a certain critic somewhere out there thinks my imagery is fantastic, so it can't totally suck even in those bits of it.
One of the best parts about this whole thing is that both the critic and my agent (cause I've finally been assigned one of my own! No more automated emails!) agrees with me in that I'll be able to do my own editing based on the critique. Some of the authors the agency embraces have to spend loads of time revising it along with a professional editor, which, to be honest, costs a lot of money. When i got the email from my agent, she said I could choose myself whether I wanted to do it on my own or go through the manuscript with an editor, and when I told her I wanted to finish the story off before editing it, she agreed with me. And then went on to saying that it would probably be fine in my case that I edited it myself. (Note: having done a professional edit gives you slightly more credit in the marketing process, but does not give you any guarantees. I read a reject letter on a script that hadn't been edited this way but it was really crap. Full stops missing and stuff. I've always had a good eye for those kind of things so I think if I go through it very slowly I'll find most my errors myself. Then there were some spelling stuff the critic remarked on, that they're spelled differently in like, the UK and the US, and I'll have to alter them by looking at her list. Gotta be consistent. Though not that easy for someone not native.)
Right. If I wanna get anything done I better leave you at this. Phew, feels good to get it out of me.
SiNCERELY, POET iN THE jAR
Ps. Can't help but almost shiver all over. "Fantastic imagery"... I'll be able to live on this for months. And finally, no more nervousness. DS.
Ps, 2. I had no idea it was "adult fiction" that I was writing. Guess I never really gave it any thought. Still, it somehow satisfies me to know that she wouldn't like, say it was a children's book or something. Haha. Ds, 2.
Ps, 3. And I mean, seriously? I impressed a critic! I never saw that coming! How do you impress a critic? Geez... I should start having more faith in myself! Ds, 3.