…and off to beta readers.
This will be the first time anyone other than my lovely spouse will lay eyes on a work almost seven years in the making.
Hahahaha, hope it doesn’t suck!
Shew.
I spent two months reading through one more time and doing line edits, tightening things and choosing better words here, slashing a paragraph or two there in a paper manuscript. From there I took about two weeks to plow through those changes in the digital document.
We went to visit our child at college toward the end of that period and that’s where I completed the edits. We celebrated in style by going to bed.
***Hot tip if you’re making physical copies for beta readers:***
Get a spiral binding on your copies to make it easier to hold, lay flat, write on, whatever.
I did a perfect binding several years ago for reader copies and it was not ideal. One of the copies had pages falling out by the end. Trying to lay the book flat was impossible if you weren’t in the middle somewhere. It’s not a huge deal, but anything that can make the reader experience better is worth it in my opinion.
Sometime around Christmas, I put together what I think is a pretty strong query letter. Once I get feedback from readers and incorporate the good stuff, I should be able to hit the query trail running.
I’ve got an account with QueryTracker, and more or less have my first round of agents lined up. Nerve-racking times, but also very exciting.
I try to be realistic about these things, but I can’t help but feel pretty good about this novel as it stands. We’ll see what the readers have to say and go from there.
What I’ve been indulging in:
- Severance (of course)
- Mickey 17
- James, by Percival Everett
- DRILL by Scott R. Jones
- Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot
- Navola, by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Baldurs Gate 3 (PS5) by Larian Studios