by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Now, I sprint.
I have a number, may a lot, of scenes I feel I have to rewrite to bring the private beta up to public beta status. And I have 20 days to do it in if I’m going to meet my official deadline of the end of spring.
But I have long said that I’m willing to give myself until no later than July 4th so I should be able to pull it off. The point is to be really, really thoughtful about the public beta and to make sure that some scenes that have Been Good and something akin to place holders are reworked or rethought rather than let slide into the public beta.
But I’m trying to be very strict about the idea that I’m not going to write too many scenes out of whole cloth. All the scenes will be those I just feel aren’t up to snuff and need to be re-written to flesh out character, plot, etc. I just don’t have time to do too much in the way of structural changes.
I do, of course, find myself dwelling on how fucking long post-production is. It’s really long. Even if I stick the landing it could be two to three years before I not just get through the querying process but the post-post-production of process that happens after you sign a book deal.
Getting a book traditionally published is, in its own way, a lot like having a baby. It’s amazing babies are conceived and birthed at all, given how many different things have to happen — and go wrong — from start to finish. But that’s what makes it all so much fun, right?
I hope to really give the scenes I feel need to be rewritten a lot of thought.
