Calm Before the Storm

Wednesday night was the screening for my team’s (Liquid Squid’s) entry into the Baltimore 48-Hour Film Project, and my team got together for dinner before the movie. Liquid Squid’s team leader is one of my oldest and greatest friends, and also happens to be one of my beta readers. There were 11 or 12 of us at the dinner, and the obvious topic was the screening and moviemaking in general. As much as I wanted to, it would have been rude of me to pull my friend aside and ask about her progress on Secernere.

I’ve run into this several times already. I’d given my book to two early readers, and then never heard anything from them. I didn’t want to be a bother; I thought it was already generous of them to volunteer to read it, and I thought they should get all the time they need. But at a certain point, I realized they weren’t going to either 1) start or 2) finish the book, and I would have to move on. It was frustrating, and a little damaging to my ego. I mean, if I can’t get my friends even to read it—let alone devour it in one night with a flashlight under the sheets—how on earth can I expect to sell it to anyone else?

Thankfully, my friend gave me a stage whisper of an update across the table: “I really want to talk to you about your book, but I know it’s not the time!” She had practically read my mind, and I was so grateful to her for bringing it up so I didn’t have to. She then told me she was about halfway through and was “preparing a full report.”

A full report?

There went my fantasy: my betas would respond much like my mom did with an “attagirl” and a few pointed-out typos. I’d fix the small things and one step closer to the final product. I think I’ve been deluding myself that there isn’t going to be (any more) real, hard work ahead of me. But I’d also be deluding myself if I said I didn’t mind putting out a flawed product.

If I follow the schedule I set up for myself, I have until early August to get the narrative locked down so I can lay out the interior and get a copy to my proofreader. I still think that’s reasonable, if I really buckle down. The hard part about right now is the waiting. I don’t want to start any round of editing until I get all beta comments back. I can start the interior templates, I can continue to mess around with the cover, I can take more footage for the Kickstarter video. But nothing feels like it matters until I get the book itself locked into final. So I’m mostly just waiting.

It’s like the calm before the storm.