I was lucky enough to have two beta readers finish my latest revision and give me feedback this past week. One who’d read a previous draft of the story and given significant notes that I’d incorporated into the latest draft; and a new reader (and my only non-writer so far).
It is a gift to have people like this in my life. If permitted I’d talk about my story all day and it’s so interesting to hear people’s speculation and reactions and I feel, at last, ready to do a little more revising based on the feedback I’ve gotten over the last two months.
My plan is not to do a heavy lift — there are no significant plot reworks that I feel like I need to commit to right now based on the feedback — but to polish and clarify a few things that I think just need a sentence or two in spots with maybe only one added scene. Then I want to truly put revisions to bed for a while and do a round of queries.
Timeline for accountability: finish the light revisions in the next couple weeks to be sending round one of queries by the end of the month.
Then do that fun waiting game and hopefully get some data about where I need to improve the story more if I want to keep pushing it forward into traditional publishing. And, you know, in the meantime, write something else.
Slow going on that front but here are the last sentences I scrapped together this past week:
- 1/7: Don’t stop on my account.
- 1/8: Then, the stain, still there.
- 1/9: Way up, all the way.
- 1/10: The blood had trailed down the ankle without her noticing, pooling at her heel and smearing the tile.
- 1/11: The longer I looked, the more I wanted to shove my fist into the glass.
- 1/12: You’re not going to figure it out right now.
- 1/13: The thought stuck.
With Love,
Natalie