by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m pleased with the ~20,000 words I’ve added to the beginning of the third draft of the mystery-thriller novel I’m working on. It really fleshes out the characters and slowly builds to an event that I think people will really enjoy. The downside, of course, is not a lot happens in these new scenes.
But, as I’ve mentioned, I sort of distract people from this by having a lot of…interesting…things happen. My heroine is now in a very Barry-type situation where on one hand she’s a publisher of a newspaper and on the other she owns a strip club.
I’m well aware that for a small — but vocal — portion of the audience, I’m already committing a venial sin by writing from a female POV. Adding to this offense by having stripping involved might be the last straw for them. But, fuck it, I have my vision for the novel and I’m going to do it.
Meanwhile, as I continue to work on the third draft of the mystery-thriller, I realize there are some pretty big structural issues that I need to work on. Fixing those problems will slow me down some, but hopefully not too much.
It helps a lot, of course, that I have a backup novel I am now working on. I hope that because of all my time working on the mystery-thriller that the scifi second-track novel will move along a lot quicker. I hope to have a first draft done by the end of the year, maybe?
We’ll see, I guess.
