by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
One of my biggest problems with this project is I keep moving scenes around over and over again to a ridiculous level. But all of that has more to do with me not knowing what I’m doing than anything else.
I believe that once I finish writing these five thriller novels that I’ll so know how I, specifically, develop and write novels that things should move a lot quicker with whatever new projects I come up.
Having said all that, it really has been an embarrassingly long time that I’ve been working on all of this. It’s time to put up or shut up. I have to just produce something, anything, that I can use to try to sell.
But, as I’ve said, I’m so stubborn that I might do a once through of all five novels before I focus on trying to sell the first novel. I really want that sense of accomplishment. One thing I’m really struggling with is how I’m going to accurately portray the police procedural element of the story. All I got is I have to get outside my comfort zone and also I may have to track down some sort of service that lets aspiring authors like me talk to police officers to get some sense of how they would actually work on a cause.
I think some of that is just existential angst. I can overcome those problems, but it’s not going to be obvious as to how to do it. If all else fails, I can just really be extremely careful with any scene that involves a police officer investigating things. I have to believe in myself, if nothing else.
It’s just going to take a while. If I’m going to ever finish this huge, massive project, I’m going to have to push myself harder. I have to focus. I have a number of other great ideas besides the five novels, but they would require a lot of work on the development front that I’m not prepared to do right now.
The Mare of Easttown meets Stieg Larsson universe that I’ve come up with is sufficiently addictive to me that I’ve grown obsessed with it. There are so many scenes that I have thought up that I want to see on the page that I simply refuse to give up.
Now, obvious, if someone steals a creative march on me somehow, then, after a lot of sulking, I’ll throw myself into one of the other concepts I have. But, as I keep saying, you have to make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know.
Wish me luck.
