I’m back!
The last few months have been very busy. Frankly, the last year has been a bit of a blur. Last February I married my best friend. We took a week-long honeymoon to New York including three Broadway shows and snow! Three weeks later, my wife started her dream job: her own wedding planning business.
That has been it’s own form of busy. I help her with most of the weddings and love supporting her. It’s a lot of work, but the look on her face at every wedding is priceless. I’m so proud of her; it’s beyond words.
I spent some time submitting my at-the-time completed novel to agents, but there were no bites. As I sent e-mail after e-mail, I had a niggling feeling that something was off. I kept feeling like my first chapter was just too weak. After a few months, I knew I had to make some major changes, but I also felt like I was so deep in the forest, I couldn’t make out the trees anymore.
With that in mind, I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made with regard to my writing: I sought out a professional, paid editor. It was a reasonable, though not negligible, expense but the rewards were invaluable. Before I got my book back from my editor, though, I lost my drive. This has happened before and, like before, it eventually passed. I tried working on a short story, for an idea I’m actually very excited about, but I couldn’t push myself to finish it (that is coming sooner or later, though).
And then my editor got back to me. My book was too long and too…let’s call it uniform in its cast composition. Neither was necessarily deliberate. Each character was based on a facet of my psyche exaggerated and then filled in to make a mostly-round character. The side effect was monochromatism. As for the length, I was proud of how much description I had crammed into the long chapters. I was most proud of the two chapters that exceeded ten thousand words.
Those got the heaviest edits in my sixth draft. After three months of work, I had shifted, distilled, and trimmed my book to half its original size with greater emotional impact and more compelling pages. It’s back to my editor now. She’ll start on it next month and hopefully get it back to me in about sixty days. I can’t wait to see her thoughts.
For now, I’m moving on to outlining Book 2. In the process of editing, I started using software that I heard about K.M. Weiland years ago called yWriter. It’s like a free version of Scrivener but with fewer features. It did wonders for my editing and I feel that I can do a better job writing
So now I’m converting notes I had into yWriter and preparing the scenes that will build the second novel in the series.
But wait! There’s more…
My wife has been advising me for a long time to build my platform. I’m going to put more time into that. My approach is three-fold: bolstering my social media presence by posting and cross-posting on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; restarting my blogging; and posting on Wattpad. That last is the only part I haven’t started yet. I’m going to do some research on it and learn a little more before I start throwing my book out there. I’m excited and anxious about it, but I’m feeling more empowered in building my platform. It’s got to happen if I want to soon acquire an agent and a publishing deal.
For now, I’m doubling down on my platform, especially my blogging. In the meantime, I’m going to research Wattpad and work on outlining the scenes for Book 2 of 7. I’m excited and can’t wait to have more to tell you here.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG