by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I see these five (3 +2) novels as one huge story cut up into five independent books. I’m in the process of doing a massive reset of the whole thing now that I’ve actually finished something akin to my first draft of a novel in my entire life. I’ve written a few other horrible novel-type things before, but this is the first time that I’ve written something I wasn’t embarrassed by.
I’m still having problems getting a crucial type of person to take me seriously, however — manuscript consultants. I’m supposed to have a meeting with one soon, which pleases me a great deal, but it’s been a real struggle to find one willing to ignore what a kook I am and just let me bounce ideas off of them. I can’t help I can come across as an Internet crank if you don’t know me in real life. Ugh.
I am who I am. And I’m too old to give a shit what anyone thinks about me.
Anyway, I’m doing some pretty basic development now. Sketching out character backgrounds and doing something akin to personality profiles. But the point of doing that is consistency. I need to establish what canon is so I don’t confuse readers by bouncing around with the specifics of any particular character’s qualities.
I am still on track to throw myself back into writing in early January. I’m trying to use the last few weeks of the year to just chill out, recharge my creative batteries and do some basic development that I should have done when I started this process.
But my storytelling abilities have improve to the point that I can tell a big, novel length story without embarrassing myself.
