mugenmine | Entries tagged with betas are love

Stuck

Draft 7
Complete @ 17500

I pinged my second beta after a year and a half hiatus. She's in! So now my story is in London awaiting a good look over. This is always a kind of exciting part of the process, shipping your work off to be scrutinized. But they always come back with crazy good suggestions and fine points that I have missed and save me from posting something with giant plot holes and crazy grammar issues. So YAY again for lovely lovely betas. (This one has been with me from the very start so she is near and dear to my heart.) I feel lucky that she took me on when I was so new to fanfic and fandom :-D

Current Mood: happy

Stuck

Draft 6
Complete @ 17500

I am in beta!! Its kind of crazy. I finished up the polish round last night at midnight after having basically dedicated all day Saturday and Sunday to editing. There were a lot of breaks and rounds of Candy Crush, and TV breaks for Doctor Who and Outlander, and True Blood and Teen Wolf, but I only left the house to get food and coffee.

I still think it needs work, but more of the noodly kind so far (pairing down overly used words, etc.). I guess the beta rounds will tell me if I've lost or not. At this point I really can't tell, which is the best time to send out for reserves. So it's currently in the hand of my technical editor friend. I apologized in advance for my comma abuse and grammar mishaps.

I think what I'm looking for is if the story fits into the string of previous ones, if motivation seems okay, if the characterization within my verse is consistent, if everything doesn't feel overly batshit crazy, and if I have any "defies the laws of physics" type action. I don't think I do, but when you work on something for so long you tend to forget that others can't see into your head and maybe you didn't translate something as accurately as you think you had.

So now I wait for feedback, then I make changes and send it out again. This is the both nerve-wracking and good part of the editing process. Having fresh eyes on any story is so needed. I just hope I've gotten what I want to on the page. You really never know. Also I have to start on something new! I still don't know!! I'm still at a complete loss as to the next story in this damn series. Not a clue. Hoping for inspiration.

Stuck

Draft 6
Chapter 5 @ 18071

The final push is on! My local beta told me that next week is the optimal time for her to edit my story, and since her time is EXTREMELY limited, I told her by hell or high-water I would get her a draft by Sunday night. So today is the full on press. I edited chapter 2 yesterday and finished 3 and 4 today. (Just finished 4 a few minuted ago.) I keep telling myself that I'm going to finish 5 and 6 as well tonight, but 5 and 6 are about 50% of the damn story so I'm a little doubtful. If I can get through chapter 5 tonight then I'm looking good. It's been a good day with good food and good progress.

It seems surreal that I'll actually have this draft complete when I claimed I'd have it done! That never happens! Before the beta timeline shortening, I was content with finishing it up by the end of next week, but now, it's on. IT'S ON!!

I'm making mostly superficial changes but it's growing smoother for it so I'm so far happy with this round. Chapter 5 is almost 3K so I might take a Doctor Who break before I dive in. gotta check out this new Capaldi guy... :-)

Stuck

Draft 5
Complete @ 18071

Finished the last big pen and paper edit!! I actually finished on Sunday, but today I finished the transcribing of my chicken scratch to Scriviner. The final chapter ended up expanding a little and so the beast is at 18K total. I have another round to do this week to see if I've gone off the deep end but I think I'm okay. Hopefully I'm okay. Fingers crossed that I'm okay... This past edit was supposed to be a lighter go, but I had zero drafted so many changes that I really had to go in and rework a lot of stuff. And 73 pages of stuff just takes time. I know it's still a flawed story, but it more or less conveys what I'm trying to say and I'm okay with that. I need to move onto something new.

The goal is still to start poking betas on Sunday. It's been over a year since I've pinged my oldest and dearest beta so I hope she remembers who I am and has the bandwidth to take a peek. She has been with me since the start so it would feel weird if I did this one without her, but people are busy and editing takes time! A new and very kind and talented person has also offered to look at my story so I'm going to give that a go too. (Hopefully they're still up for it.) And finally I have my local friend who has also started betaing my stuff. I edit all of her original fic so it's a good trade. Hopefully they can help beat my messy story (and all of its errant commas) into place!

(Just read through the draft... Took an hour! It's in a bit better shape than I expected. Some bits in chapter 5 are still a little squirrelly, but I can clean it up. The final moment also needs a little massaging but it's kind of there. All manageable things.)

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

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Entries tagged with betas are love

“Are you still with me?”

"I wasn’t trying to be Houdini."

‘You would have to decide if that’s enough.’

”Hold still.”

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January 2016

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