Revisiting “The Worst Best Luck”

So I had a glass of wine on Friday night (which is what you say when you’ve had a bottle, because it’s technically true that you did have “a glass,” and also true that you had “another glass,” but that way you can tell people that you enjoy “a glass of wine now and then”), and I got loose enough that I finally opened up The Worst Best Luck to see what I had there.  Was it as Worst as I’ve been ragging here, or was that just the typical authorial “o fuck it’s shit” reaction to our own work when we’re not happy with it?

I definitely had a block on it, for some reason.  When I did my “digital remastering” of everything in my catalog, I left this one off the list.  My redheaded stepchild, so to speak.  Oh, it’s terrible, terrible, I can’t face it!  I was a bit ashamed because of the mechanic part with Matt, the fact that I made up a bunch of bullshit for the auto mechanics of which I know NOTHING, and really have no interest in knowing.  And said shame is a good thing, in the long run, since I won’t totally bullshit my way through anything again – Rocky and Dex will require that I learn at least some passable lingo about music recording and production, but I gotta say, that’s more interesting than car stuff 🙂

Anyway.  I started reading it and, so far, it’s not terrible.  Especially when I compare it to some other writing I’ve seen lately. (“Tyler Skylerton, I am going to fuck you right and left, and up and down, and all around, until you gasp with delight and beg me to stop and start again,” Ryler Tylerton said to his tall and handsome and perfect lover with breathy breathlessness.)  I mean, you know, some seriously Bulwer-Lytton Award level stuff.  I know the backstories in WBL are good, even without rereading them – my backstories are always The Shit 🙂

I do dread getting to the soap operatic ending, which maybe IS terrible, but maybe I can cross that bridge when I come to it.  I may cut the scene where Matt listens to Bach and does, um, car stuff, and if I decide I need a better ending, and can think of one that is both plausible and dramatically satisfying, I’ll change it.  If not, I’ll leave it and fix what I can.  I don’t know!  I don’t know why I’ve been yelling “you’re no son of mine!” at this book.

And shit fuckity, my sales are going down the longer I don’t publish again, but I can’t publish until Rocky and Dex is done, which is months away…so I could REALLY use another BookBub between now and then.  They rejected “Apollo,” though, you know, try try again.  But if it’s sexin’ they’re lookin’ for, WBL has got some good sexin’, if I do recall!  And then I can reach out to my three-star reviewers and ask them to take a look at WBL 2.0 and hopefully re-rate it.

At any rate.  This public announcement is my way of committing to the revisions, I guess.  I’ll fit them in when Rocky and Dex just aren’t flowing for me, and see what comes of it.