Still Here, and Revising to Get Better by Dean Gloster

 

            One of the best things I did this year was not quit.

            Writing is a sometimes-tough gig, especially if (like me) you’re a slow writer and you write mostly novels, which take a L-O-N-G time to finish. Other writers tell me the second novel, after you’ve published the first one, is especially tough. That seems to match my experience.

             I also set a nice, tight deadline for myself.

            Sometimes—especially when you work for yourself, as a novelist not currently under contract—getting things done means painting yourself into a corner so you have to climb the walls.

            And at this point, I’ve set myself up to do an impressive impression of Spiderman. Or something.

            I’m a member of two wonderful writers’ groups, and I committed to one of them—which reads and comments on the entire manuscript—that I would submit a completely revised version of my YA novel Just Deal. In, ahem, four weeks. Which will require rewriting huge chunks of the thing. Did I mention only four weeks? And being a slow writer?

Interesting roads ahead

            Also, I went back into therapy this year, which was a really good thing. (My former therapist had retired, so I took a one-year mental health break from doing the hard work of therapy. Which mental health break did not fix me entirely. Go figure.)

 

Maybe, in the month ahead I’ll even harness my harsh internal critic to help with revisions instead.

A guy can dream.

Whatever your struggles, I wish you a warm and wonderful 2024.

 

Dean Gloster is a former stand-up comedian and a former law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court. His debut YA novel DESSERT FIRST is out from Merit Press/Simon Pulse. School Library Journal called it “a sweet, sorrowful, and simply divine debut novel that teens will be sinking their teeth into. This wonderful story…will be a hit with fans of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars and Jesse Andrews's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” His YA short story “Death’s Adopted Daughter” is in the anthology Spoon Knife 6: Rest Stop from Autonomous Press, and his YA short story, “Proof of the Existence of Dog” is now out in the anthology Spoon Knife 7: Transitions. He is at work on two more YA novels, one in draft and the other in revision, and makes periodic anti-authoritarian ramblings on the prince of fools app formerly known as Twtter, at @deangloster.