If I put into google “agents debut novellists commercial fiction” will I see some miraculous future? I’m becoming more nervous as the reading period for my ‘beta readers’ drags on. Some of my readers are reading it through twice to make sure they have given me as much feedback as possible. Others have gone Very Quiet which suggests that it is perhaps difficult to read, too shoddy to read, to shoddy to give feedback to. ERK. Or perhaps they’re busy. Or perhaps they don’t know how paranoid I can be.

I’ve already got a goodish sense of the major bits of work I want to do to the draft. I need (want) to pull a character forward in the narrative, to shake up the order that the plot proceeds in and to bed in a couple of themes a little more. I still haven’t read the beat reader draft from beginning to end since I sent it to them. I need to be able to read it as coldly as possible.

To keep me busy I’ve written about 6000 words of a new book project. So far the next book project seems to be feeding on my nervousness by exploring characters who may not get what they thought they wanted.

Sending out short stories is only marginally less nerve wracking, but I’m practicing my ability to take rejection. And, sometimes, putting a ‘yes’ in my spreadsheet of acceptances.

I’ll read my beta reader book in August. Editing is cathartic. I can’t wait.