March 10, 2021
Day 156, Week 22
- Words: 85,542 (10,788 revised out)
- Revised Chapters: 15
- Ego Size: Sesame Seed
- Emotional State: Lost in the Crowd
My manuscript is moving forward. The acquisitions editor (AE) completed her initial review and it’s ready for full feedback and pre-sale campaign building & launching. I’ve spent the past week revising, revising, revising. I’ve only managed to cut 1,200 words in the past 6 days, which included an entire chapter, so I’ve obviously also added at the same time. Sigh.
But this weekend I received The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. I spent two days reading and digesting it and then another two days applying it to my manuscript. I know, I know. He says to take weeks to do that, but I don’t have weeks and a lot of the work I already did when I created and tracked my chapter goals/paths/obstacles/crisis or climax.
What I’ve figured out is this: I made my life SO complicated with my story. Because of course I did. My external conflict is a crime genre and most of the obligatory scenes were present or have been added to the revision (prior to reviewing it against The Story Grid). I’ve also felt really good about the smaller touches I’ve added to the chapters I’ve revised to give the story more depth. That’s straightforward.
This is where it gets complicated. My primary MC’s internal conflict is Worldview: Revelation. All of the obligatory scenes are there, but I needed to add some more layers to it. Great. I’ve pathed it out and I’m ready to go. BUT. My B story – this internal conflict – overrides my A story in the beginning because my MC ignores the main call to action.
What does that mean? Basically it means the crime story beats happen initially in the background and then those beats pick up very quickly, gathering steam as we get to the All is Lost moment. Okay. So I mapped out those pieces, made sure it all fits and done, right?
Nope. I have a secondary MC and her internal conflict is Status. And she’s not in the book as much, which means I have to cram her story beats into the few times she’s present in the book.
So, rather than let the external conflict drive the story forward, I have to obscure the external conflict for a bit while we get the meat of the internal conflict sorted out, but for both my MCs, one of which pops in and out of the story.
But I think I have it sorted out. And I’ve already deleted chapters or scenes that added nothing to either of the three conflicts and that weren’t setups for the next part. Of course that means that my goal of cutting out about 30,000 words is not on track. I’ve got 22 chapters left and somehow need to cut another 20,000 words. ?
In other news, I’ve done absolutely nothing to prepare for the pre-sale campaign piece because: 1) I’ve been focusing on revising the manuscript before I get the AE’s feedback; and 2) I’m dreading it.
I’ve been really focused on building up my Twitter following because I see that the writing community there is really active. PitMad happens there, agents follow authors, a lot of promotion happens on Twitter, etc. A lot of strong support can be found on Twitter. But…and here’s the kicker. There are a LOT of writers either writing, editing, or querying their novels. And a lot of authors who’ve written multiple books. And once again, I’ve had an attack of the “I’m one snowflake amongst many in the blizzard of books.”
But then I remind myself that I tell all of my student writers there is an audience for their book – and I genuinely believe that. So, I bolster myself up. I am writing this book for people to read it, not to become famous or make millions of dollars. To do that, I need to publish it and promote it. So: Step 1: Get it published. Step 2: Continue to promote it so people know it exists. Step 3: Write the next one. Rinse & repeat.
Writing isn’t easy, especially when you combat your own insecurities and emotional upheavals, while also living a life. Add in anything else on top of that – loads of people having time as pandemic shut ins to finally write those books in their heads, the crazy selectiveness of publishing in general, rise of self-published authors – and it can drown you.
Right now, I’m holding my own life preserver. I either take the step and do the work to make the pre-sale campaign successful or I drown myself in my own insecurities by throwing that life preserver away.
I’ve always been a survivor. I think I’ll keep the life preserver.