Love, Lies, & Clones – Off to Beta Readers!

Oh, what a feeling!

My first “readable” draft of Love, Lies, & Clones is off to three beta readers. I feel like I’m alive again! The sun is shining. The air is fresh. The birds are chirping.

Life is good.

I love writing though. I really do. I just am a little (okay, a lot) obsessive compulsive on getting things done that I can’t stop until I’m finished. Urgh. That’s hard when you work full time and have a 11 & 13 year-old at home. But I’m not making excuses. I’m pretty happy with my progress so far.

I’m done with a draft that I’m not completely embarrassed to show a few people.

Here’s what I’ve done:

• Outline (1 week): Completed in the middle of February when there was 2 feet of snow on the ground and I didn’t want to go outside anyway. Why not write a book?
• Draft Zero (45 days): My skeleton draft. This had about 50K of words. I set my alarm for 4AM every morning and committed to writing 1 scene. 45 days/scenes later and I completed it.
• Revisions & Fleshing Out (40 days): April was Camp NaNoWriMo and I committed to adding 30K to my novel by fleshing it out and working on revisions. I read through it twice and made a ton of changes, but only managed to add about 20K to the document. This process continued until this week… When I can finally say…

Official First Draft Compete!!! Yay! Off to beta readers after 3 months of work!    Here’s a really exciting photo of a pile of paper — but it’s all there!  (With some changes already.)

Still to do:

• Revise again! With feedback from beta readers.
• Beta Readers Round 2
• Revise again!

Then I don’t know what to do. Query an agent or self-publish. I’m really leaning towards self-publishing…  But I’ll obsess over that (and post a blog entry) when the time is closer.

It’s early yet. My novel may flounder in the hands of the beta readers with no possibility of reviving.  (But I’m determined not to shove this one in a drawer.)

Next week: More on Beta Readers! Now that I have three looking at my manuscript, I’m in LOVE with the process.

 

Here is a quick blurb about the novel (in case you have no idea what its about yet):

June Taylor is a clone. She thought she was the only one until her estranged father showed up on her doorstep, insisting she get out of town. At that moment, her orderly life began to crumble.

Now, her father has disappeared and June is the only one that can find him, since she’s the only know that knows about the illegal human cloning he performed thirty years ago. How can the police help when they don’t know the truth?

June’s plan is derailed when a military man, currently AWOL, insists she help him search for his brother.

Can the two learn to trust each other for the sakes of their loved ones?

They’ll need to now that the bad guys are after them.