We got our latest work-in-progress, The Oculars, back from our beta reader last week. It wasn’t the news were hoping to hear but it was the news we were expecting. It was rough and we have a bit of work to do on The Oculars, mainly fixing a major disconnect between the first and second half of the book. What started as a monster-centric tale of horror morphs into a paranormal tech-thriller in the second half. Put plainly, our monster disappears. We touched on this problem during our final edits but it didn’t really sink in until our dear beta reader let us know how much it affected the story.

We know what happened. We started this book several years ago and then it languished, half-finished, for months. By the time we picked it back up again, our concept had grown hazy and our chapter map was only partial. We should have taken the time to really flesh out our chapter map but we never did. Let me tell you, when you have a project that’s been in the works for a year or more, there comes a time when you just want to get it done and off of your to-do list. And that’s what happened to us. We rushed the finish and it shows.

So what’s next? Nancy and Eric are reworking the manuscript. We know what we need to do and we know how we need to do it. Nancy is away in her mobile writer’s retreat for  a few weeks. She’ll be going through our beta reader’s comments one at a time to clean up the nitnoid stuff. Then the real work will begin. Thankfully, we can keep the bones of the second half, but the ending needs some heavy revision. We know where it needs to go, which is a bit of a relief as we don’t need to completely throw out our previous work. This will take some time.

We hope you are heading into Fall with a clear path and renewed enthusiasm. I know we are. As always, thanks for sticking with us!

Kind regards,

Anne, Nancy, and Eric