by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Now, there are plenty of things that could go wrong. But, in general, I THINK I’m starting to get back into my normal groove creatively. I think I’m probably on track to start to query some sort of novel in about a year.
Some pretty big things have happened in the last few weeks that have punted my dreams down the road another year.
Despite that, in general, I’m pretty pleased with the new incarnation of the mystery-thriller. There were some basic structural flaws in the novel that I’ve fixed on a conceptual basis, which will take time to fix in a practical manner in the text of the novel.
But I think — THINK — there will now be a lot more tension in the novel that just didn’t exist before. I’m pretty sure that there will be, like, a point to the novel now that didn’t exist before.
The novel didn’t have much point before because it was just just set the stage for the rest of the series. But now, I think, I can engage readers to actually care about what happens to my heroine.
It definitely helps that I’ve turned her into a drunk and so her more salacious, outrageous behavior prudes will ascribe to that. That will help a lot, I think, in getting people to get past some, if not all, of the sex in the novel.
But I think very soon there’s going to come a point where I’m really going to hunker down and rework on a structural basis some of the novel that I’ve not really given much thought to yet.
We’ll see, I guess.
