As anticipated, October was intense.
I love October. In Phoenix, October is when we come back into our bodies after a long summer of existing in a fugue state of heat and frustration. We revive our gardens and clear away what the heat killed. Oh look, that’s where my soul went!
October is Halloween: costumes, candy, welcoming the darkness. I love dress up, using clothes and makeup to explore another piece of ourselves, another identity, another mask. Writing a shapeshifting novel is definitely part of that fascination with transformation.
Needless to say, Halloween costumes are essential for the whole family. I made the smol humans capes with flat-felled seams and felt exceptionally clever. I made myself a mushroom hat so I could be Maybelle Eequay’s Little Frog. This was my first Halloween costume in years that wasn’t a sad last-minute mom costume.
And my computer finally came back to me! I can write with a functioning trackpad and all my keyboard shortcuts are in the right place again.
But also, I got sick. The birthday and the holiday and the school break and the start of projects all stacked up to make for a fully overwhelming month and there were some tears. Several tears. And we shall not discuss how the computer store put back everything except 20 years of playlists.
On top of all this, there was the book.
Yeah…remember how I fixed one or two things in section two, for clarity, at the beginning of the month? Well. I went to give section three a final read over and discovered that in addition to brand new continuity issues courtesy of my section two edits, I NEVER TYPED UP THE EDITS FROM THIS SUMMER. Ugh. I fixed the continuity, typed the notes up, and what I got was awful. I hated the ending. It felt wrong and exhausting, like wading through sand. I PDF-ized the chapters, cried, and told myself the readers would just have to tell me where I went wrong.
That night, I pouted extensively, binge-read an entire YA novel, and woke up realizing what I needed to change.
There were no stakes.
The ending dragged on and on in a sulky teen haze because there were no consequences, no gut punches to spur the characters into action.
I upped the ante, and voila, the ending fell into place. Slowly: I was effectively going from a first to second draft, and the edits took forever.
All these changes unfortunately meant I had to beg another deadline extension from my ever-gracious readers. I hate asking for deadline extensions almost as much as I hate knowing a draft is wrong.
But what I delivered was workable, content they could actually interact with instead of tripping over how stuck the characters were.
After so many changes, the readers are now holding draft five, not draft four, in their hands. I sent the last chunk of pages off to readers Wednesday, and nearly a week later, reality is finally sinking in.
I completed another draft. I sent the pages. My deliverables for the beta read are…done?
This new draft is much more powerful, the characters more clearly articulated, the plot more focused. I am proud of all those things.
What I am not proud of is the way I had to derail my deadlines twice—not once, TWICE—to make these changes happen. Now we will be reading in December. I very much wanted to spare my readers the stress of a time-intensive project during the holidays and I am beating myself up over this delay.
And I remain deeply concerned about the word count.
It’s not done: issues the readers have uncovered with the middle and end have to be fixed at the beginning. A draft is an ouroboros: I knew the beginning was not quite right, but I had to leave that to work on the end. The end showed me what I needed to change in the beginning. Once I rewrite the beginning, I am sure there will be some continuity issues to fix with the end (I see you, draft six).
But draft four is now draft five. Soon I will be applying the final edits inspired by beta reader comments and planning a peer edit. But the dark half of the year has finally arrived, and for a short while, I can recharge.
