Good news, everyone! (say it in a Professor Farnsworth voice)
The beta read is in the wild!
A few specs on the release for my lovers of detail:
- 147 pages
- Two very dicey maps
- one full-island, one city closeup
- If my readers take these as a desperate cry for drawing lessons and sign me up I will not be offended
- One four-page index of characters
- I suppose now I have to rescind previous statements that everyone was being a tad dramatic about the number of characters
- One backend management process comprised of a home-built collection forms, spreadsheets, and group messages
- Partially held together by anxiety and a rough calendar
- So far nothing has fallen off!
Having real people reading my book is intensely gratifying but it is also ratcheting my anxiety up to eleven. What if it’s not good? What if they hate it? What if they hate ME?
The tiny part of my brain that evolved to keep me from being eaten by large predators has, lacking large predators, decided to apply itself to people reading the book that I wrote so people would read it. May I say, it is a WILD ride.
To be clear, all my beta readers are kind people and avid readers, so logic says they will only tell me my book is awful if it is truly and irredeemably bad. But also the brain does what the brain does, and I knew it would do this. I could publish my grocery list for others to read, and my brain would still go into fight or flight overdrive. In preparation, and to avoid spending the next three months twitching and sobbing in a corner, I made a few rules:
- I can read the feedback but I cannot do anything about the feedback. Once chapters are handed out for review, nothing changes until everyone has had their say on the whole book.
- I can’t change anything independently of what the readers say. It does not matter how many paragraphs I look at and go “ooh, you know what would be better?” Nope. Not happening. They are stuck in place now.
- If I need to burn off some nervous energy, I can
- Research
- Or outline a new book
- No touchies book one
This is the process I am working with for now. I was reading an interview with author Shelly Jay Shore, in which she described her wild-to-me editing process. The important thing is it works for her, right? My own process will undoubtedly evolve over time.
A question for all the other writers out there: what is your review process? How do you keep your brain from fretting too much while your work is out for edits?
Allison Ringness 