by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Completely on a lark, because one person asked for the first chapter of the novel I’m working on, I decided to send the first chapter of the beta draft to some people.
I kind of goofed and didn’t read over it one last time before I sent it to these people, so they may see some rather embarrassing goofs on my part. Or not. I just don’t know.
But I think I have learned my lesson on that front — always do one last check of your copy before you sent it out for *any* reason. And, yet, I also think doing it this way is a good way to manage my expectations.
I have to appreciate that things may not quite go the way I expect with beta readers. It could be that I actually write something pretty good and I STILL can’t get anyone to be a beta reader.
I’ve had problems with expectations about novels I’ve written in the past. So, hopefully, I can avoid that kind of stuff going forward.
Anyway, I’m nearing the end of the first act of the beta draft. Soon, things are going to slow down significantly because I’m going to have to do some structural rewriting. And the second half of the novel is far less written out than the first. So that is really going to slow me down as I make my trek to the end of the novel.
But, we’ll see, I guess.
