Starting to process my backlog of links. Originally, I started collecting this particular list when the allegations about Neil Gaiman surfaced last year (if you've been lucky enough to miss that, but want to learn more, muccamukk's round-up post is still an excellent overview).

It's always hard when stories, songs, shows, etc that made a difference to you turn out to be created by someone who's done or is doing horrible things. I always find it hard when it's followed by a demand to just stop liking whatever it was, as if that's as easy as snapping your fingers to remove the impact of sometimes formative stories from one's life.

Here are a few links that helped me navigate this, whenever it happens, since it happens often. If you only have energy for one link, I'd recommend making that the first one. It's nuanced and practical.

Dealing with Authors Who are Jerks, Bastards, or Downright Evil in Real Life by writinginthedarktw. "But how should we react when a writer we admire, or who we have a personal relationship with, turns out to be a not-so-good person? The short answer, of course, is you can react any damn way you wish. There’s no right way. But I can share with you how I attempt to navigate these rough waters."

( 4 more links: 1 for library workers, 2 on how putting people on a pedestal does no one any good, 1 on a specific fandom )

I am 57% into my beta edit preps – not the edits themselves based on the actual beta feedback yet, but the list of action items I intend to go through. I'm more or less following the plan I had set out, though I ended up using Scrivener comments a lot instead of a separate file as I had expected. So I have 3 files/file types:

• Structural comments, which I'll address first. I think this will be the most difficult and most painful part. Will try to do this in a way that has as few consequences as possible to limit the amount of rewriting (I think that's feasible as long as I'm careful, for this particular story).
• Overall comments, for stuff that'll need small changes in every chapter. I plan to re-read this before and after every chapter edit, so I keep it in mind as I edit and potentially find new areas to include these elements. It's about things like certain characters feeling too one-dimensional and/or too unsympathetic (so more options for interactions, flashbacks/memories, and other elements to flesh them out more), worldbuilding elements that still weren't highlighted enough and feel like a surprise when they come up later, etc.
• One file per chapter for more generic notes, though so far I'm not really using that much. Scrivener comments are doing the job. And it's very satisfying when several people bring up the same thing and I can edit an existing comment, like, wow! This sure was a confusing paragraph for everyone, huh!

Having said that, I still had massive, massive, massive issues with getting started. Like, I had built this all up into such a huge thing in my head, and it's in the first time I handle feedback on an entire manuscript at once, and from several people... Below the cut is a list of things I did to finally make myself Just Do It (tm). Maybe there'll be a piece of inspiration for someone else, though mainly I want my future self to remember to check here next time I'm stuck! In my case, it was definitely a process problem, like, just not knowing where to start or what to do.

( vriddy's weirdo productivity tips on actually getting started )

In general, I am tremendously enjoying working offline. I got the feedback back in 3 formats: GoogleDocs, Ellipsus, and LibreOffice with tracked changes. I am loving the LibreOffice one, so much that I downloaded all the GDocs too (thankfully the comments are included!) and work like this for everything. Ellipsus didn't work for me for reasons I mentioned earlier, and as a note doesn't seem to allow exporting with comments either, as far as I could see.

Making progress feels nice! Once I have a system, it's easier for me to let momentum carry me. We'll see if that continues to work when it's time to do the actual beta changes! I do intend to take a short break before jumping in.