by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I spend a number of hours this afternoon fucking with different variations of the “Fun & Games” portion of the novel’s outline. I must have worked three or four solid, intense ours on this. And things have stabilized, I suppose. I say that then turn around fuck with all over again as I’m writing this.
Anyway, I’m on track to wrapping up the first half of the novel within about a week, I think. If things continue to work as well as they have recently. The story continues to “breath” growing and changing as I see different ways to improve it. I know this story very, very well at this point.
I have to prepare myself to pivot to something else writing wise once the Beta Reader process officially begins.
That is going to be…a change. It’s going to be interesting to see how difficult it will be to switch gears after having obsessed over this particular story for so long. The obvious temptation is to start working on the second novel in this projected six novel project.
And, yet, I also think I should probably work on one of the several stand-alone novels I have rolling around in my hand at the moment. Regardless, things are going to change pretty dramatically for me on the creative front once I actually finish this second draft. I’m going to switch from struggling to finish the second draft of my first novel…to struggle to get people to actually read the second draft.
THEN, of course, I have to save up money for an editor while also cramming to learn how to write a query letter. I could go through all this hard work, only to see any success I might get squashed because I’ve been too much of a drunk crank all my life.
But it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.
