by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m really itching to start working on the third draft, and yet, I also realize that this pause I’m allotting myself can be used to improve it significantly. I’m actually READING for once. My goal is to read some very important books that could really take a number of elements of the novel to the next level.
It’s been a real struggle, however, to get myself to this point. I just either want to write or daydream. I kind of fell out of the reading habit a number of years ago but now I’m forcing myself to read some books for the purposes of research.
I have come up with a specific detail for my heroine’s character that I feel will really take her to the next level. It’s the type of “color” that readers — and marketers of the book — could really latch on to. But I have to kind of put myself in the proper mindset to know enough about the subject I’m thinking of to actually pull it off.
One issue I’m having is I’m just, by nature, too silly. I have to center myself and take things a lot more seriously if I’m going to successfully write about the subject at hand. It at times like these that it really hits home how important it is to do research when it comes to writing any novel worth it snuff.
Anyway. I am very eager to start writing again. I’m also eager to see what beta readers have to say about the second draft. But I’m pretty much at the point where the “it sucks” response on their part is already baked into the cake. I know –I just know — that I can make the third draft professional enough that I can show it to a manuscript consultant.
