Plot Twist!

One week ago, on Tuesday, November 1st, I started NaNoWriMo 2022 with every intention of using the next 30 days to draft a whole new book, a thriller called COMPLIANCE, as detailed in my previous blog post. But on Wednesday, November 2nd, I received feedback on a few dozen pages from the third draft of my novel DIRTY that I’d submitted to my book coach, Ammi Keller. Her motivating, resonant feedback has led me to alter my plans.

I took a good hard look at what I have going on personally and professionally this month, and determined November is an unusually intense period this year. There’s upcoming travel and serious day job projects and general autumnal nesting to be done. Plus, I know I want to query agents with DIRTY sooner rather than later, but I still have some revisions to execute before the manuscript will be airtight as I can make it without an editor’s input.

The catch is that my window of opportunity for 2022 has narrowed. The old school traditional publishing industry tends to close to queries by Thanksgiving and not open again until after New Year’s. Add to that the scope of revision tasks I need to undertake, as well as some new writing I want to insert, contrasted with my reduced capacity, and you have the perfect chilly winter storm. I basically need time and focus in order to have DIRTY ready to go out the door and succeed.

So I’m going to forge ahead and input all of my handwritten notes and annotations, then revise a couple of scenes in the first quarter of the book over the next two weeks. I’m meeting with Ammi again the day before Turkey Day; I’ve committed to submitting 20,000 words for that session. That will put me solidly thirty-three-and-one-third of the way into the manuscript. I’ll repeat this cycle in December, then again in January, to close it out.

I feel strongly that this is the right and best course of action creatively. DIRTY deserves its due, and 2023 is going to be about giving it space and exposure so it can find its rightful readers and champions.