by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
The thing about the novel I’m writing is, initially at least, it’s kind of located in a kind of meh place. It’s an actual literal place and as such it’s kind of uninteresting to someone living in LA or NYC. But that changes dramatically not so much because the location changes but because the use of the location changes.
Trust me, if you read what I’m writing, you’ll get it.
I have thought a lot about this and I am finally about cool with this. I’m ok with it now after some struggle because, well, the use of the otherwise unassuming location is interesting enough — really interesting in fact — that I think readers will really like it. And the reason I ultimately give for using the particular location makes sense in the context of the story well enough that I think readers will appreciate it.
And, as I’ve said, my expectations are really low. All I want is someone, one person, who I don’t know to read this novel and want to know what happens next. If I can get someone to read the entire finished product and they honestly liked what I wrote enough that they want to know what happens next, then it will be a success.
Anyway, I have a lot of work to do. A whole lot of work to do. That’s the thing about novels they don’t really tell you about — it just takes physical time to sit down and write 100,000 words, especially when you’ve done little, if any backend work. But that backend work is what I’m going to do after I finish this first draft.
