I got word yesterday afternoon that my Alpha Reader had completed the read-through and had answers to most of my questions. There was one question which perhaps I hadn’t phrased as well as I could, and two or three where the recollection of detail wasn’t clear enough for any answer since the read-through had taken so long.

I’m reluctant to post the feedback right away since I haven’t had a chance to clarify everything yet and make sure I’m interpreting the feedback correctly, but overall the reception appears to be a positive one. There are a couple of areas where I think the need for improvement shows in the feedback, and it’s those areas where I’d like to pursue some clarification so that what I can ensure that the improvements the feedback seems to call for are the actually the ones that I bear in mind in my next review.

Short.

So, this post is necessarily short as, although I need to report achieving the milestone, I don’t quite have the feedback ready to report here.

Why bother with such a short post?

Good question, but this is mostly a personal accountability blog which I hope might prove interesting to anyone reading my work who’s interested in the path I took starting from the basic idea and ending up getting it published.

In any event, the next steps in the process are even more nerve-wracking than awaiting and going over Alpha feedback, knowing full well that there is a very real chance that the feedback could be a diplomatic way of saying, “sorry, but your story sucks.”

Up Next…

I’m now about a third of the way through Infamy and drawing some interesting parallels between the Japanese internment and the Warsaw ghetto experience – it is from the threads of these parallels that the stories of the Black Box Factory will be woven. I’m keen to complete this read-through before starting any other work, at least in part because I feel that I never finish anything and starting something with a task incomplete irritates me no end.

Before Infamy having been completed, I’ll be sitting down with my Alpha and going over the feedback to make sure I have it fully on board, then I’ll be starting one more edit cycle to bring the manuscript to its fourth draft, which I estimate will occupy another four to six weeks.

Once that’s complete, I’ll be in a position to plan for and work with Beta readers, so if you’d like to be a Beta reader, let me know. You can get in touch using my contact me page, my Facebook page, or on Twitter.

Before all that, though, I’ll be posting the feedback here, without spoilers, hopefully in an extra post before next week’s post, so stay tuned.

…and of course, I hope everyone has a great week.

Alpha Read-Through Complete...

…I just like writing that!

Categories: Alpha Reader, The Old Man, Work Update, Writing

Tags: Alpha Reader, The Old Man