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As posted on Substack.com this evening ...

 

What does wrapping up the second draft of the novel feel like now?

 

Here’s the deal. I’m on chapter 24. There will be 27 chapters in the book. My Excel spreadsheet listing scenes tells me that I’m currently reworking scene 83. After this scene, there are only nine more. OTOH, chapter 26 is one big hairy scene. Climax of the book. It can’t stay as one scene. I’m guessing it’ll become five. That would bring the total scenes to thirteen. At most, I’ll need two days for rewriting each scene. Takes me to June 24^th.

 

So it will take me all but a year to rewrite this novel and revise it one time. Wowsers.

 

It feels like when I’m in a jet and we’re getting close to landing. The story is making unanticipated twists and turns. I’m following along. Sometimes I’m in the clouds and I can’t see ahead. Other times, the sky clears and I’m WAY closer to the ground than I thought I was. The happy/scary sound of the landing gear descending is coming. I don’t know how I feel about that. Then it’ll be a while (2 minutes? 7? 12?), and I’ll see the ground racing past the window as the tires thud down on the runway. There will be a bounce. I have no control over any of this. It’s just something that’s happening to me. That I’m enduring …

 

Earlier this week I wrote an email to Christina, a new writer friend I made at the Bosler Just Mysteries Book Group discussion. In that email I outlined next six months for my YA thriller novel. Here’s what I wrote:

 

• June 16th: Complete 2nd draft of RR (actually the 13th draft. After 11 drafts of the novel as a Coming-of-Age story and little response from agents, I'm recasting it as a thriller). July 7: Complete a continuity draft to make sure everything makes sense, even if it's not art. 
• July 7-28: have 3-4 readers, including you, if you will be so kind, read RR and give me feedback. 
• August: revise, reread, revise. 
• September 2: send to a yet-to-be-chosen developmental editor I trust (spend the big bucks). Have another 6 friends read the book while I'm working with the editor. 
• November 3rd: query 20 agents.

 

I’m not sure why I care about time in regards to moving towards publication. I don’t need any income from this thriller. When the book is available to buy (either through traditional publishing or self-publishing) and I am an “author,” I don’t think I’ll feel any differently about myself. What is an author anyway? The only reason I’m publishing is to set the bar a little higher for YA writers (ooh that sounds egotistical—so be it) and to get a book into the hands of teens that will give them plenty of fresh ideas to mull over. I hope that teens will be reading it and thinking about it for a long time. The key to having those latter scenarios occur is to write really well. Writing really well does not go with writing in a hurry. Oil and water, to coin a phrase.

 

Tell you what, though. Some of the scenes in this novel kick ass. And now that I’m wrapping things up, I’ve reread and revised most of them that do. No one else in the entire world knows these scenes. The scenes have zero reality outside of my head. And yet, they give me the kind of satisfaction a woodworker must know as he or she works his or her lathe, or that an artist must know when colors cease to be brushstrokes and coalesce into a person or a street scene.

 

p.s.: my wife and I finally figured out why no one is subscribing to my personal website. It’s because, six weeks ago or so, I deleted the homepage and made the blog page the homepage. I forgot that the subscribe button was on that homepage (gak!). I’ll fix it this weekend. Again, thanks for reading!