A Book Down

After 350 days, my first novel is in the can. The first draft took eight weeks of intense writing. I realize now that was the easy part. Its there-writes that are the real grind, going through line by line, taking out what doesn't need to be there and cleaning it up. Each re-write took as long as the first draft, and you have to sit the draft and let it cool down in your mind. That time is essential. I didn't realize how important it was to get distance from the book.

My last draft was my forth draft, and I was still finding errors and plain bad writing. And I had two good proof readers besides myself going through it. In the end, I read the whole thing, one sentence at a time, out loud, and that helped a lot.

I'm excited to get back to the first draft of the second one. I miss drafting. I used to think of it as"real writing", but really its creating. Its all real writing, but that first draft is the funnest part.

I'm back to chronicling my day to day writing, as well as doing my best to give everyone an honest look at the submission process for a first time writer, which is bound to be brutal.

There are two roads: straight to a publisher and trying to get an agent. I plan to submit to one publisher at a time while shopping agents. For those of you who don't know, its a rejection filled process. Writers tend to have fragile egos, and the rejection tends to make people quit trying.

In the end, its about belief. I have to believe that the book is good and not give up. This is the sort of thing that no one can do for you - you have to find it in yourself. Its not anyone else's dream, its yours.