by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, here I am “done” at last with a version of my novel that I want someone to read before I begin the querying process. I have one person I hope will read the novel for me, but I really want to pay someone to read it. And I’m living in poverty, so it’s going to take time just to save up the money for that.
And that doesn’t even begin to address the possibility that my would-be editor won’t blanch at the part-time sex worker nature of my heroine. There IS a lot of sex in the novel, but, in general, I don’t think it’s gratuitous. It serves a point and makes the novel run at a nice little clip.
And, yet, we live in a hyper sensitive world where a lot of people apparently hate sex of any sort. So, I don’t know. I may never find *anyone* to edit this first novel and will just have to wing it.
I have a second, sequel novel I’m working on that seems as though it might be developed at a pretty fast clip. It’s essentially the rest of the novel that I split into two when I realized that was the best course of action. All I have to do is rework it some and I can start writing it pretty soon.
But at least the scifi novel I’m working on has little or no sex (in real terms) and, as such, if I find myself languishing in the querying trenches I can at least hearten myself with the knowledge that I can always use the scifi novel if need be. The scifi novel I’m come up with is really, really good.
I gives me the opportunity to use a lot of ideas that I’ve been formulating about AI and robotics for some time now. My only fear is, of course, that things are moving so fast that by the time the damn thing is published, some of my predictions will seem quaint.
But, if nothing else, it keeps me moving forward.
