One More Year (Another Day Rewrite) Chapter 2 is Out!

Writing is easy, editing is hard.

Chapter 2 is out, and you can find it HERE (Nifty) and HERE (Literotica).

I'm struggling to fill up some of my later chapters, because of the specific way in which I write. I tend to jump around, so my later chapters tend to inspire a lot of content in my earlier chapters that would otherwise be filler scenes that just moved the plot along. It makes everything tie together nicely, and practically writes itself. But when I start reaching the end of the story, I can't draw filler from future chapters that don't exist, and I have to sort of do the reverse and try to wrap everything up. But, like I say, that's the easy part.

The hard part is editing. I'm not particularly gifted at it, although I'm workable and well practiced, especially at the moment. My desk still has a big pile of printed out iterations of my Masters thesis, which I should really get around to burning. For the symbolic release, mostly, but it's winter here now and it's also nice to have kindling.

This is not a desperate plea for editors - I honestly would still make sure my work was at least not painful to read before I sent it to anyone. I'm half daydreaming about a fantasy scenario where I whip out a novel and just ship it off to an editor that I pay and trust, to turn it from a garbled mess into a polished gem. But it's still early days, and I'm aware that may not be the most realistic scenario. (But a fella can dream.)

Part of why I'm maintaining this blog is to give me an outlet where I can just write stuff and absolutely not worry about the quality of my prose. Which is only one of the two things that annoys me about editing, but the other is maintaining my narrative flow, which I've heard isn't really possible when the narrative is your own, real life. (Or maybe it's called self improvement, but that seems like a LOT more work.)

So yes, I've been throwing at myself at working Chapter 2 into something pleasing, and hopefully it is. I'm still pretty chuffed with the story-building I'm doing, and my early chapters don't really reflect well what I'm going for. That is intentional though, but it means there are limits to how much I can engage with my readers, the first couple of whom have been very nice.

Massive thanks to Dora, my first and most reliable Beta Reader, who's input has actually had a pretty big impact on chapter two. 

Notes on Differences (OMY vs AD)

Yes, I'm acronyming my stories now. I feel sufficiently famous. But mostly just lazy.

Chapter level spoilers for Chapter 2, so cut and run here if you must.

The major difference that becomes apparent in Chapter 2 is that I've given Eric and Jay a meet-cute, and I've shown, not told, stuff about Jamie. I've thrown in characters (Two come to mind) who may or may not be relevant later. I've just looked at the original chapter, and holy hell, I've also made Jay a bit more of a consistent character - I've removed a weird, 2-paragraph character-arc from well-behaved nerd to black-out drunk. I'm also still cramming in more character and world building, like I did in Chapter 1.

Volunteer Editors & Beta Readers:

I can't really offer any payment at the moment, as this story is a pure work of love on my part, but if you're interested in editing (and of course, capable of such) then let me know. Editing, done right, will be a pretty laborious process, so I really won't be surprised if I can't find anyone who does it for free. But if you are able and willing, let me know. 

I also wouldn't mind some volunteer Beta readers - you work won't be nearly as difficult, as all I'll want from you is to read a chapter (which you'd hopefully be planning on doing already) and then just answer a few specific questions about it. I also can't offer anything for this, but once I've settled on a more or less official core of beta readers, you'll be getting the chapters before anyone else and maybe having your recommended changes implemented. So hopefully that will be rewarding enough.

At the moment, the system I've picked for Beta Readers is simple and straight-forward - you can just go directly to the form and answer some of my questions. I don't know if I'm asking useful questions yet, but I'll figure it out. Give it a look - there's no requirement to answer, and no requirement to keep answering in the future if you answer now. I will be trying to get Beta reader feedback before I publish chapters, because it's proved very helpful so far. (Again, thanks Dora.)

Otherwise, thanks everyone for reading (presumably) both chapters, thanks to anyone who's made me feel like my blog somehow adds value, and feel free to say hi in the comments!