by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The first act of this novel has gone in a rather unexpected direction. I’ve really amped up the “Barry”-like elements of it. But doing so leaves me a little unnerved because the very thing I think could be a really cool marketing hook….is also the very thing that may turn some people off, or cause them to throw the book across the room.
I just don’t know.
I’m doing all of this in a near-vacuum, so it could go either way. If nothing else, the novel is…unique, interesting. One problem I have to fix is the novel isn’t nearly dark enough and I also don’t think the bad guys are clearly defined as people who could potentially hurt our protagonist.
One thing is clear, however, I can’t keep spinning my wheels. I can’t keep tinkering over and over again with the novel’s first few chapters. I really need to buckle down and do whatever I have to do to get into the second act as soon as possible. Given how much I’ve changed the first act, I’m going to have to really re-work the rest of the novel to accommodate the changes.
But I love a challenge and so the key thing remains not allowing myself to just spin my wheels. I have to, have to get into the second act of the novel as soon as possible. I’ve decided to try to give myself until no later than, say March 1st to finish this third draft and the only way I’m ever going to accomplish that goal is to take things a lot more seriously.
And that doesn’t even begin to address any number of things that could happen that might change my rather idyllic situation I find myself in at the moment.
