The Endless Expanse of Editing

I'm still on Step One of the editing process, the assembly of the scenes. The Roster, if you will. Who is here and who isn't.

I haven't made a lot of progress lately, what with the holidays coming up and all that. It's a lame excuse, I know. But hopefully come January, my days off will actually be off and I'll be able to work more on it.

I'm about halfway through my Word document, which means I'm more than halfway through my story, because there was a lot of extraneous stuff at the end for the sake of words that I no longer need to worry about. Basically, it just continued the story of the main character, and what he does later, which was mostly retell the whole novel to other people. You know, for words. So I'm not even going to look at that right now.

The point I'm at right now is kind of an interesting point. When I reread the story back in October, I left myself the note "Holy fucking scene change, Batman," because it jumps from an afternoon at the Legume Festival, to some point at night, some undetermined time later. I guess 2016 Me just wanted to get to the next part, and didn't care for such trivial things as transitions.

Although, this point is a great opportunity, since it jumps ahead and acts like things have happened in the interim, when I go to add in more plot stuff and buildup, this is a great place for it. Basically everything that happens after this could easily be shifted later in the story. And a lot of it could be completely rearranged.

I have been trying to avoid making any judgements on what to keep and what to cut until I finish Step One. Because that would be Step Two. I certainly have an inklings on some things, about how they might work better, or that they're practically useless. There is one scene where a couple of characters get drunk on top of a water tower that doesn't really move the plot forward, but there is a conversation they have that I enjoy, and so I would like to recycle it, or parts of it, if I can manage to work it in. I want to keep the Legume Festival, in some form, and the Sprinkle Tax.

Of course, by the time I get to the end of Step One, I might realize that it needs to be a completely different book, and I'll have to cut those. Kill your darlings, they say. Someone said. William Faulkner, I think. So maybe I want this to be a surprisingly funny story about vampires and murder, but maybe it actually needs to be a dark and serious horror. Because I swear, any time I mention this thing to anyone who wasn't around when I first wrote it, they're all, "Oh, this should happen," or "That should happen," and it's all very dark and too twisted for even me, and I'm just like, "It's not that kind of a story." Yes, it's about murder, but it's also about dorks who work in an ice cream shop. But maybe it should just be dark and twisted, if that's what people want? I mean, I don't particularly want to write that story, so I probably won't. I need to stop talking to people, I guess.

I've also been getting way ahead of myself and started looking at publishing options. Mostly I was looking at self-publishing. I'd prefer to try to traditionally publish it first, but I know that's going to be a lot harder. I would have to find a publisher that wants stories like this, that would be willing to take a chance on a first time author. Also, it's a very adult book, with a lot of cursing and gross violence, but absolutely zero sex, and I don't know if that's going to be a problem for me. I know sex sells, but I'm not willing to write it, so does that make the book less appealing to "real" adults who are into that kind of thing?

If traditional publishing doesn't work out, I'm totally willing to do it myself. The easiest (and perhaps most well-known) way is to put an e-book on Amazon. But part of me wants to have a physical book I can hold in my hands. Which can be done. I have found several places online, and even one locally. But it's kind of expensive for someone like me.

But that's kind of beside the point. I need to write it first. Then I'll worry about that. That's 2020 Me's problem. 2019 Me needs to do some serious editing first.

There may or may not be a post next week, because of Christmas. So Happy Holidays, and I'll see you in January for sure.