by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Now that I’ve gotten out of the first few scenes of the beginning of the second draft of this novel, I feeling a lot more confident. I’m definitely going to make one last run-through of the first three chapters once they’re done, but overall I’m feeling pretty good about where things stand.
I really have to root around in what I’ve written to ensure that cause and effect are really strong. I can’t allow big plot points to happen and then not show the consequences of it all. But that’s coming. I feeling pretty good. I think — baring something I can’t predict — that I should still be on track to wrap up this second draft at some point in the spring.
It may be as late as May, but not later than June.
That leaves me the summertime for the beta reader process, which could be a real pain in the ass. No one will do anything for me, much less read a 100,000+ word novel. But there’s always hope. They say to get beta readers, you have to be a beta reader. That’s the theory, at least.
Then I can maybe save up for an editor before I really get serious about querying. I’m growing more and more nervous about querying. I think I’m going to absolutely force myself to start working on some other creative projects as I careen towards querying so I won’t be in a standstill.
The post-production process that starts with querying can take a very long time — years, even — and I have to accommodate that. The great irony will be, of course, if I finish this first novel and it’s one of the OTHER things I work on that ultimately is the thing that gets published first.
I have three or four solid story concepts I can pivot to while I wait and wait and wait for the post-production process to grind along. Anyway, I’m getting excited — I don’t feel like I’m spinning my wheels as much as I used to.
