by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
For once, everything seems to be going according to plan with a first draft. At the moment, it seems as though I have a pretty good chance of finishing this first draft so I can pause for a month before turning around and re-write everything.
The story is structurally sound and I really do feel as though if you read this first novel in this five novel project that it will seem like an old brown shoe relative to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series. It’s something of a slow burn and the third act really takes things in an unexpected direction.
Because I have no one to tell me no, I’m going to throw myself into the second and third novels in this project during the month-long pause I plan on for (probably) all of June. (I really hope to finish the first draft of this first book by the end of May, but something could always happen to stop or delay that.)
But, for the time being, I’m hopeful.
I think there’s a decent chance that I won’t embarrass myself, if nothing else.
The emotional heart of these five novels is meant to be the bond between an AmerAsian Mare of Easttown-type woman and a Lisbeth Salander-type woman. The dynamic between the two of them over the course of a generation is what I hope will bring people back for all five novels.
If I had anyone to tell me no, what I would do is focus exclusively on this first novel in the project and try to use it as a calling hard for my career. But I’m stubborn and there’s no one in my life to tell me no, so, fuck it. Try to finish five novels it is.
And that doesn’t even include the ‘second tract” novel I have rolling around in my mind.
Though, to be fair, I do plan on using as much of my time as possible on the first book. I always thought my first novel would be scifi, but lulz, no. It’s something akin to a thriller. But I think that’s a designation I use simply to make marketing easier.
The first book is more a character driven novel about a woman’s relationship to her family and the people she loves in her life.
Anyway. We’ll see.
