She Also Remembers Things I Wrote When I Was Seven (We Do Not Speak of It)

So I’m feeling kind of okay about the structure at the moment, as opposed to ‘oh god, oh god, what did I do?’ so that’s good.
I laid it out, wrote in the bits in the gaps, and finally have something that I feel like I can show someone without killing myself. And it’s about time because this ‘little beginning section’ turns out to be 19 chapters and 45 000 words. Which is… well the phrase I used was holy mackerel. Although you probably shouldn’t because that’s weird.

So I’m nervously sending it to my primary beta reader a.k.a. my mother before whom I cannot be embarrassed because she remembers every one of my goofy childhood haircuts and that there was a time when I still wore pink and put my hands over my eyes when there was kissing in movies.

So if I’m making a idiot of myself in front of her with this… well, it won’t be the first time. Which is good. Because I still have this horrible feeling that it makes no sense at all and I’ll have to start over with it. Which… okay, yes, I would do that. I once rewrote a book from first person into third* in four weeks because… well… That wasn’t entirely my fault! But I had to and I did it. So it will not be the end of the world if this doesn’t work. Will not. If I repeat that often enough I don’t start gnawing on my fingernails.

Ooh, I know, I’ll go and do another round of query letters cause it’s about time, and that won’t make me crazy at all.

 

* Which, by the way, is not simply a matter of changing the pronouns.