ahhh finally done. 3-4 more rounds of beta edits left, let’s gooo
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I am tired? 
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are you tired?
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I was? 
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I feel this. Between work and other stuff, I have been so tired. I have blogs to update, stories to update, a house to clean, other books to work on, and a garden to wrap up for the season. It all feels like too much. Hang in there. We’re only human and can only do so much. Even doing a little on your stories matters.
I love that our research so often overlaps.This was also a fun rabbit hole I went down 
I highly recommend reading “Jersey Tough” by Douglas P. Love and Wayne “Big Chuck” Bradshaw. A true story about Bradshaw and his journey from outlaw biker to undercover cop. It’s WILD and morbidly insightful.
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pros of working through beta reader feedback one at a time:
- structured, clear end points
- won’t be overwhelmed with a bunch of feedback at once
- working in small chunks is the easiest way around my terrible inability to prioritize other tasks.
cons:
- debating whether something is an issue issue or a style difference.
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They can be both an issue issue and style issue. It depends on where the story is going. TradPub has standards that aren’t necessary, and so does WP and a whole host of other ways to gain an audience. It doesn’t mean you cater to any of them, automatically, but if you want their favor, it may have to change, even if it wasn’t serious.
Now, if something about your own style standard shifts during the writing of the story, like x is complained about for 3 chapters, but nowhere else, you might need to compare chapters, to see if those 3 chapters match the standard you set elsewhere.
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that’s true, although i’m not catering to any particular publishing standard, one of the purposes of editing is to make the story good for people who are not the author lol
even if a suggestion isn’t something i want to implement at face value or a reader has misread my intentions and commented based on that, i usually try to dig in the dirt surrounding the problem to fix things so that the intended effect comes across more clearly. Like if I say “the door was crooked” and somebody goes “i wonder who broke the door and if they’ll be in a scene later” then i can go back and change it to “the door hung crooked off a badly warped frame” to depict neglect rather than furniture abuse by mystery figure.
but occasionally i get comments that make me squint, like one of us isn’t familiar enough with this literary device, but i don’t know which one.
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I will, thanks for the recommendation. I am also reading “Under and Alone” by William Queen, which is like the opposite of that 
He is an undercover cop, posing as a Mongol MC Biker, to infiltrate them. It’s also good so far.
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Third party check.
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i’ll cross reference with other beta readers, its just that going through the feedback from each of them one at a time leads to this problem. ergo my original complaint.
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Ohhhhh I will have to read that one too! That sounds good.
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I did 5 chapters in one day two weeks ago. Since then I have written . . . one sentence
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pls 
my brain is sticking 
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OMG this is so me. 
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Ooh, somewhat related to the mafia stuff I tend to write. If you want to watch a really good biker gang show, I definitely recommend Sons of Anarchy. All the seasons. Then they made a new one about a different gang recently and it’s much shorter, The Mayans. So gooood.
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A miracle happened! I decided to open the finished novel I had been editing after not even looking at it for months because editing (ugh) and was thinking I’d probably read it, feel overwhelmed again or hate it, and close the document. But I read it and was like, hey, this is better than I remembered? I wrote this? I guess fresh eyes and a break can make a difference. Got me really excited again, I still love the story, and I did some actual editing today. Yay! 
Still writing fanfiction though. 
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I watched The Mayans with my friend, and I was kinda pissed off about Coco dying, but apparently, it had more to do with the actor than the show’s general direction, and I wasn’t a fan of the last season, except for episode five and the finale, even though I thought was a bit rushed and I knew that EZ was going to die. I am glad Angel got away, though. And Galindo is done, but I did like the first two seasons, and the fourth more than the third and the last.
But in general, it was enjoyable. I generally liked the characters (except Bishop in S3-5), and I got annoyed at EZ, but they wanted us to be annoyed at him, Angel annoyed me a bit toward the end, and I didn’t care much for EZ’s girlfriend(s). Alvarez, and Hank, though. They were great. And I liked Canche too when he stared the pot, but I didn’t like how abrupt his death was either. Same with Manny.
I still need to watch SOA though. I know I have spoiled some of it for myself but I don’t mind . I am gonna watch it eventually anyway with my friend. I think it will also be good since it’s the original show that started the universe.
I don’t know why I watched Mayans first, but I did. Maybe because it was out at the time, and I saw it, but I am glad I watched it regardless.
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That’s a great sign that it’s a story worth fixing.
Wishing you happy edits.
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I haven’t visited this space in a while. How is everyone doing?
I got some pretty awesome news today for one of my books. I’m still trying to process it all.
It’s certainly rejuvenating but it’s also overwhelming. I have so much work to do…
Where is that time? I need more time.
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