by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I transition from the first to second draft, I find myself dwelling on how I can really engage the reader. Even the few alpha readers I have aren’t sufficiently interested in what I’ve written to read it all the way through quickly. And that is troubling because what I want is the novel to hook you from the first word so you find yourself at 4 a.m. on a Thursday checking your watch as you finish up the novel, not realizing how fast you’ve read it.
But the transition from first to second draft is going really well — so far — and there is a pretty good shot that I will at least be within shouting distance of that desired endgame. Maybe.
I continue to be uneasy about what is going to happen should people do due diligence on me. I’ve always — always — just been myself online and sometimes that “being myself” means not following the established media narrative. Like, if I express angst about how I, as an established white male author might not be able to get as published as easy as someone else…is that, unto itself, problematic?
Probably.
But I can’t who I am. I go where my eyes and ears take me and it definitely does seem that being a “CIS white male” trying to get my first novel sold isn’t exactly helpful. I am well aware that that is actually not the case and most authors are, well, CIS white males. But that doesn’t stop me from having some anxiety about it. It just *feels* true, which, is, of course the type of thinking that got us Trump.
Anyway, I just try to be the best person I can be.
