Yes, after months in hibernation, I am finally reviving work on Road Closed, because it is time to get writing or quit trying. These blog posts, while satisfying, will not be cherished by millions.
Neither will Road Closed, but if I self-publish I can probably force more people to read it than look at my blog (current views for today by way of example: 3).
The first thing I am doing is using the plot outline template from Libbie Hawker’s Take Off Your Pants (my favourite way to write), to see how the overall plot holds together. I know there are things that I never quite fleshed out and questions to be answered. Once I have the outline sussed out, it’s back to writing and after finishing the first draft I’ll go back and toss scenes that no longer fit and make other adjustments. In fact, I had already started this before my last not-meant-to-be-a-sabbatical.
But hey, instead of writing my plans out in a big, cumbersome paragraph, let me write out out in list form. Maybe I’ll do the entire book as a list!
Plans for Road Closed in 2019:
- Use plot outline template to complete plot, uh, outline
- Look for any holes in the plot, fill as necessary
- The above may include both adding new scenes and purging ones that no longer fit
- When the first draft is complete, get very drunk, in keeping with the theme of the novel. Actually, don’t do this.
- Finish the first draft
- Read the first draft, take notes
- Write the second draft
- When the second draft is complete, realize I am so sick of the story that I have lost all objectivity and find a first reader, possibly several first readers
- Get the first reader(s) to read the novel and offer detailed feedback. More than just “I loved it!” Or “I’m never speaking to you again!”
- Determine if this feedback is sufficient to do a third and final draft
- If not, shop around for a professional or semi-professional editor to go over it
- Write the third draft
- Research and refresh myself on the art and arcane magic of self-publishing
- Self-publish the novel
- Hope that more than three people buy the book, making it more successful than my blog, while also covering 0.001% of the expenses involved in self-publishing in a crowded, unforgiving market
It will be a grand adventure. Maybe I’ll write a book about it someday.
