I am in the middle of summer vacation right now. Three weeks from submitting final grades for all of my 11th-graders, who are going to be someone else’s 12th-graders next year. Which means I am turning to books, of course. Both ones to read (trying to figure out how Bell Hooks’ methods can be used in an online classroom), and to write (Easterbay, my latest novel).
I was dismayed to find that I had forwarded myself the wrong version of the book to edit on my new computer. Not a big deal, though, I reasoned. I would just find the more complete version on my old computer and resend the file. Except that it doesn’t seem to exist anymore. I have looked literally everywhere I can think of, including my email (in case I sent it), and my dropbox files. Nope. It’s nowhere.
I think what happened was that I input the whole thing into Scrivener and then didn’t hit “save.” Sigh.
A book that was fully edited and probably 75% away from beta reads is now about 50% of a rough draft that needs HEAVY editing. I’m slightly demoralized, but I will tell you… what exists is GOOD. Like, I forgot I wrote it and fell right in good. I’m motivated to do the rewrites because I’m excited about the story. If the unedited draft is like this, I have a feeling the edited stuff will be exponential in comparison.
Still, instead of hoping for a published book by the end of the summer, I am now only hoping for an edited book by the end of summer. If I am VERY lucky and motivated, I may get Brian to start alpha reads.
I don’t know what else to say except that this seems like an important moment in the life of this book. And getting back into the swing of things as a writer is an important moment for me. We may be a little less of what we were hoping, my book and I, but we’re also charging forward and feeling good about it.
Happy summer!
Casey E. Hamilton 