Last June I sent Draft Four of my novel-in-progress to five beta readers. This past Sunday I did it again. I sent Draft Five to five different beta readers. I also sent the manuscript to one of the first five beta readers and asked her to let me know if she thinks I created any damage as a result of all the cuts, changes, and rewrites I made to this latest draft – to comply with current guidelines for lengths of novels, I cut almost 9000 words. Hopefully, I left enough in tact that I didn’t ruin anything. However, I have a safety net. I have saved every single draft of my novel. I can always add something back in if necessary.
You can probably tell from the above, I consider getting my novel out in public both scary and exciting. However, it gives me a much-needed break from it. I’ve asked my readers to send me their comments by June 30 or sooner, so now I have time to blog, write some new poetry (I plan to participate in Robert Lee Brewer’s April Poem A Day Challenge that starts tomorrow), and increase the number of miles I walk a day while I train for the Out of Darkness 16 to 18 mile walk for suicide prevention on June 27. I’m also slated to do some consulting work on a proposal for the aerospace industry. So I’ll have plenty to do while I wait.
Of course once all beta reader feedback is in, my novel work starts up again:
- I’ll review the comments and criticisms
- I’ll make changes as appropriate and turn them into Draft Six
- And I’ll hire a professional editor to edit and proofread the document as a whole.
In all this should take another four to six months.
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