Tag: novel

by Shelt Garner
@Sheltgarner

I’ve said before that writing a novel is like the scene in Ocean’s 11, where the rockie is told all these things and the very last thing, the most important thing….they aren’t told because the guy telling him is interrupted.

And that thing, the thing you don’t know, is the like what the whole process of writing a novel is like. So, here I am. I’m cruising through the first act of second draft of the first act of the novel, maybe writing something really good, and maybe writing crap.

I just don’t know.

The only way I will know, at this point, is finishing a second draft and handing that second draft over to Beta Readers. It really could go either way this point. It could be that my gut has been right all this time and it could be that what I’ve written sucks really, really bad.

Anyway, I’m hopeful. I believe that I’ve finally — finally — stumble across a really good story with really good characterizations and, most of all, stakes. Something that would draw readers in a way that they will be willing to spend enough time with the characters I’ve come up with to finish the Goddamn novel.

Regardless, I feel pretty good about what I’ve come up with. There are plenty — PLENTY — of things that could go wrong. To the point that I really need to start working on a second or third track that I can fall back on as necessary should the worst happen.

But as I keep saying, you have to work on what you do know, not on what you don’t know. If you worry exclusively on what you don’t know, then you spend all your time worried about this or that absolute worst case scenario and never get anything done.

So, you have to focus on your goal and go from there.

I hope to start writing again with full force on the novel at some point within the next 24 hours. All systems are go, if nothing else.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve heard recently the occasional stray comment that there is a growing trend on the part of the publishing industry for single POV novels. This is a problem for me because when I was thinking about how I do my first novel, I simply used Stieg Larsson as a guide.

In general, however he did it, I did it.

And Larsson repeatedly during his Millennium books used more than one POV. Now, one key thing that I’ve gradually come to realize is if you use a POV other than your heroine’s, it has to be meaningful. But, from what I’m hearing, lulz, just have one POV if you want to get published.

I’m just not prepared to change to that MO in my novel at the moment. Momma aways said I was special, after all. I have a vision for this novel and if it makes it more difficult to get the novel published, so be it. I really, really like what I’ve come up with and, if all else fails, I’ll simply fall back to a second or third tract novel where I do use one POV and try to leverage that to sell the novel I’ve been working on all this time.

I have to admit that I’m feeling pretty insecure about this whole thing the last few days. But this happens to me all the time, usually a very specific moments in the month that I can predict. I usually don’t have anyone to bother me when I write and occasionally I do and it scrambles my internal writing dynamo. But it passes soon enough.

As such, I use this “pause” in my writing to do a lot of reading and watching of TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. That’s the goal, at least.

But, anyway, I’m going to try to seed some potential beta readers with the first chapter of the second draft of the novel this weekend. It’s could be really tough to find anyone willing to be a beta reader. They say to fix that problem you need to be someone ELSE’S beta reader.

I probably need to force myself to read other people’s novels just so I get back into the habit of reading fiction before I start being a beta reader for other people. The few times I’ve tried to be a beta reader for someone, people got really mad at how brutal I was on their writing. I’m really, really brutal on my own writing, but I get it.

I need to be nicer.

Anyway. Wish me luck.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Sometime ago, I sent a detailed outline to a manuscript editor who I think is probably in Maryland. Ever since then, I’ve been feeling pretty paranoid that she really liked what she read and either decided to write the novel herself or handed it off to someone else.

So, when I saw someone in my Webstats from Maryland looking at post of mine where I mull the possibility of someone stealing a march on me creatively, I, of course, automatically thought the absolute worst. And, yet, I have no idea why anyone would look at that particular blog post.

Here’s what I wrote.

The interesting thing about showbiz content producers is one hand so much of what is churned out is unoriginal dreck and, yet, when you’re working on your own project you always worry about that one asymmetrical attack that forces you to re-think or shelve what you’re working on.

Some of this, I know, is nothing more than “first time mom jitters,” in the sense that you work on something so much that you think, “Well, if this concept is so obvious to ME, then obviously, it will be obvious to SOMEONE ELSE.” (That’s a lot of obvious.)

This is where my personal belief that you have to make decisions on what you know, not on what you don’t know comes into play. If you worry about what might happen all the time, then you never take the risks necessary to even have a chance at being successful.

So, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just moving forward for the time being. If something is released or announced for release that steals a march on me, then I’ll address it at that time.

But, for the time being, things are full speed ahead. Wish me luck.

There are plenty of reasons OTHER than someone being on the cusp of stealing my novel idea for someone to be interested in that post. But I have to admit that it’s going to take a bit or two for me to process this information because I’m so fucking paranoid about someone stealing a creative march on me.

What I’ve come up with is really good and it would be just my luck for someone to steal a march on me for a really dumb reason. And, yet, after the shock wore off, I probably would both be shocked that I came up with a good enough idea that someone else was able to run with it.

But I know why I’m this way — Annie Shapiro brought ROKon Magazine back to life behind my back and so I’m paranoid about something similar happening. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.

I refuse to live my life in some sort of abstract fear, however. I’m prepared to ride this particular pony to the bottom, if necessary.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I continue to not know what I’m doing, I am getting a general sense that maybe things are beginning to get better — a lot better. As things get better, I find myself dwelling on all the things that could go wrong to make all my hard work moot.

The next novel in the project is about a missing baby.

And, yet, no one can predict the future, least of all me. So, you just have to wing it. We all have to wing it. But I am concerned that I could endup writing the fucking Bible and because I’m a drunk crank…I don’t get published. Or a civil war breaks out and we’re all too busy trying to avoid bombs that no one has time to read a novel — much less mine.

So, I don’t know what to tell you.

All you can do is just believe, you know? Keep the faith and all that. You just never know what might happen if you just keep plugging along. I’m growing really pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. There are stakes and motivations. All the things necessary for a good to great story.

I’m so pleased with what I’ve come up with, that I’m growing more and more interested in diving into the second novel in this project. But, I dunno. I think I should probably work on the two scifi novels I have rolling around in my mind before I do that.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally have pretty stable first act. I’m now going through what I have and am correcting things as necessary to make it a cohesive whole. The only problem is, of course, is this whole process continues to take a lot longer than necessary. It’s looking like if I’m lucky, that I’ll have something akin to a complete first act within about a week.

My only hope is that once I get into the rest of the novel that things might move a bit faster because I will have the foundation of the novel figured out. And, in general, the rest of the novel is a lot stronger already. I don’t think I’m going to have to rework things as much as I have had to in the first act.

That’s the hope, at least.

Anyway, I continue to need to be willing to force myself to go outside my comfort zone by working harder — even when I’m not really in the mood. I can’t keep just drifting towards my goal. I have to accept that if I’m going to get this done, I need to take it more seriously.

I still think I can pull this off. I still think I can finish the second draft by July 1st. That’s the dream, at least. One issue that is kind of rough is once I finish the second draft, things are going to kind of be out of my hands. I’m going to have to figure out a way to get someone, anyone, to be a beta reader for me, willing to read the whole thing so I can improve it.

And, at the same time, I’m going to hopefully be able to save up for some sort of professional editor to stress-test the story in some capacity. That’s the only way I’m going to make this story better.

I have to admit, of course, that as I find myself growing closer and closer to finishing this first novel in a projected six novel project, that I have a growing desire to start work on the next novel in the project. I pretty much know how this first novel goes to the point that I can start to work seriously on the next novel.

And, yet, what I should be working on, of course, is one of the scifi novels I have rolling around in my mind. But, who knows. Things are both getting more exciting and getting more scary because there will come a point soon enough when I can no longer be as completely delusional as I have been.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The first act is getting a lot better, and, yet, as I go through what I’ve already written or plan to write, I continue to tinker with the specific lineup of scenes. This causes a great deal of delay because I sometimes have to think up entirely new scenes out of whole cloth.

And, what’s worse, my scene count continues to creep up. I was fell really stoked when I had the first act scene count down to ~30 scenes. But now it’s up to 36. This is really important because the longer the novel grows, the more likely I’m going to have to write a SECOND novel to pitch as my first because I just can’t sell a first novel that blows past 100,000 words.

It’s all very concerning and annoying.

And, yet the story I’m fleshing out for the second draft is really, really good. I’m really pleased and I really have an understand about the characters that I haven’t had before. This, unto itself, is enough to speed the process of writing up because even if it have to think up an entirely new scene, I know the characters and story well enough at this point that things go really fast.

But here I am, 16 days in and I’m not even out of the first act yet. I really need to speed up. I can’t just keep drifting towards my goal. I need to buckle down and actually do some hard work — even when maybe I’m not all that motivated to do it.

The issue is — if I don’t speed things up, it will be the fall before I finish this second draft and then that pushes everything else down the road. I really want to start querying early next year and, as such, I need to wrap this second draft up no later than, say, July 1st.

I also want to read — and watch movies and TV — a lot more than I have in the past. I have found that if I actually lower myself to consume someone else’s media that I’m far more productive with my own creation. It’s I’m so used to producing rather than consuming content that I really struggle with switching gears like that.

Anyway.

I really have to focus. I’m really excited about what’s going on with this novel, but there is going to come a point where if I don’t finish something, anything, I’ll be so old that it’ll all be moot. I have to stop treading water and actually be willing to move forward, even if I feel the draft is less-than-perfect.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After much revision, I have nailed down my structural vision for the first act of the second draft of my first novel. The next step is to go through and revise and write what I’ve laid out.

The other option would be, of course, to plow ahead without looking back then at the end of the process go through and rework the entire completed draft so it’s worth reading. But, for the time being, I’ve decided to do it this way, which is to make sure the first draft is done and complete before moving into the second act.

As such, I have a lot of hard work ahead of me. I have a number of scenes I have to actually write still — I just have scene summaries for them as place holders at the moment. But my aim is to slowly and methodically go through what I have and make everything make sense. I want the first act to be “readable” for Beta Readers before I plunge into the first part of the second act.

I don’t know how long that will take me, but hopefully — hopefully — I will wrap things up on that front by, say, next weekend. If I can pull that off, then I’m still on track to finishing the second draft by July 1st.

THEN, of course, I have to start contemplating the Beta Reader process and saving up for an manuscript editor to look over what I’ve written. Once all THAT is done, THEN I can start the querying process. I believe I will be at that point by early next year.

Of course, that would put me in line to be trying to get an agent just as the potential “Fourth Turning” is careening towards America in late 2024, early 2025 at an alarming rate. It’s going to be pretty ironic if I spend all this time working on a really good novel, only to have the United States to buckle and collapse into civil war and potentially revolution.

If we just slide peacefully into a MAGA-themed autocracy — which what I believe will happen — then the latter novels in this project will be very, very timely. So much so, I might get arrested.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While things are getting a lot better with the first act, I continue to feel like I’m spinning my wheels, treading water. Usually this happens when, after a great deal of thinking, I sit down to write and realize the sequence of events I laid out in the outline just doesn’t work.

So, I throw everything up in the air and start again.

But I’m hoping that this latest iteration is going to stick. I’m 13 days in and haven’t gotten out of the first act. But I’m hoping to buckle down this weekend and really do whatever it takes to get out of the first act. I have a lot of scenes from the first draft already written that I feel are stable enough to use in the second draft.

And, yet, I am sufficiently insecure about such things that I whenever slack I have in the process of writing the second draft I will use it to rewrite first draft scenes to make them strong enough to handle the Beta Reader process. That, at least, is the dream.

I continue to feel a lot of dread about not only the Beta Reader process, but the whole issue of querying an agent. My only way to square that particular circle is to really throw myself into a second and third creative track when the time comes.

Even if I stick the landing, the querying process as a first time novelist could be a long — A LOT — longer than I’d prefer at my age. But I started when I started and I can’t really change that. It just so happened that I was 25 years later than everyone else being in a position to not only have something to say but being willing to put in the hard work to make my dream a reality.

I don’t know what to tell you. At least I get my late bloomer nature honest — my paternal grandmother became a painter later in life. Her aspirations were not nearly as lofty as mine are, but the sentiment is similar.

But it’s really beginning to register that I’m in the put-up-or-shut-up stage of things. I can no longer just drift in the general direction of my goal of being a published author. I have to force myself outside of my comfort zone and have some hard metric that I expect of myself if I’m ever going to finish this second draft in the allotted time.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m trying to be as careful with my scene count as possible. I’ve finally gotten the scene counts for each segment of the novel down to just about where I want them to be.

But there is the issue of the length of the individual scenes. I’m worried that even though the actual scene count is where I need it to be, because as I improve as a storyteller my individual scenes are getting longer that in the end, lulz. My fear is I’ll STILL blow past the 100,000 wordcount sweetspot.

With that in mind, I continue to dwell on a second creative tract. I have two strong scifi novel concepts that I need to work out so, if all else fails, I’ll have a novel or two that is just about 100,000 words. That is a lot of work, of course, but the hope is that once I finish my first novel that I will understand the dynamics of how to write a novel well enough that the process of developing and writing a second and third novel will come to me a lot easier.

At least, that’s the dream.

I feel a mixture of terror and excitement over what is going to happen I start to not only the beta reader process, but I also begin to — gulp — querying agents. That’s really going to fill me with a great deal of existential dread because I can’t help who I am. I can be a rather…colorful…character and my fear is that I could write the fucking Bible and agents will lulz representing me once they do a quick due diligence on me via social media.

But the story I’ve come up with is getting darker and spicier. The biggest change between the first and second draft so far is I’m making great pains to establish stakes, so the question of, “Why should I care?” is answered clearly. I’m really trying to make my villians, villainous to the point the Good Guys are Good and the Bad Guys are Bad.

And, yet, of course, I am doing all of this in a vacuum, so, lulz, I don’t know what to tell you. It could be that the beta reader process could be a lot — A LOT — more bumpy than I’d prefer. Who knows, though.