by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Just today, I reached a milestone — a very viable and complete outline of a first draft of my first novel. It’s probably going to be in the 130,000 – 140,000 word range, but still. It’s at least something that’s strong enough that I can turn around and rewrite it so I can start entertaining Beta Readers in late spring 2023. This is happening in the context of having finished the writing of all but the third act of this first draft.
Obviously a huge amount could still go wrong. Or the context could change. But I’m feeling pretty good at the moment, at least. There is rhythm, and ebb and a flow to this first draft and I can really build on. I need to do a massive amount of reading, of course, if I’m going to take this thing to the next level.
I really need to flesh out some of my characters, if nothing else.
And given that this first draft is going to be too long, I’m going to have to think about how to pare back the word count some. I’m going to try — try — to get it down to as close to 100,000 words as possible for the second draft. I really don’t want to have to pay an editor to do that type of dirty work for me.
Though, to be fair, I continue to do all of this in a vacuum and I continue to flail around, not knowing exactly what the fuck I’m doing. But that’s getting better. The learning curve isn’t as bad as it has been over the years.
I can now turn my attention (some) to the other novels in the series. Though I think I may have to pay someone to talk to me about how to flesh out the second novel. It’s got a great conceit — an abducted baby — but, well, that’s pretty much all I got. But I do have a lot of established characters and an extensive canon to work with to do just that.
But it’s times like these when I sigh a huge sigh of relief. I don’t feel like I’m drifting through space, without any frame of reference with this novel project. Now I feel centered — I can now sit down and finish writing third act, which, would also mean I had finished the first draft.
Then I do a lot of reading, daydreaming and development on the other novels in the series — and begin writing the second draft so I can begin the Beta Reader process in around April – May.
That, at least, is the dream, the goal at the moment.
