I'm Not A Hand Sitter.

8/19/2011 editing , pain , pleasure , writing 1 Comments

I am not a hand sitter when it comes to my books. I'd spent yesterday going over, Beyond the Eyes for the millionth time, and I’m still going over it. It has been critiqued already, polished, and I think every scene moves the story forward or is relevant to it, but still I feel the need to go over it. Maybe it’s the perfectionist in me when it comes to my work. I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll find an agent soon who will love this story, but the reality is it could take months or maybe years for that to happen. I had heard from another agent in London the other day, and she told me that she enjoyed reading, Beyond the Eyes (I had sent her the first 50 pages), but they only have four people on staff and it’s not right for her list. She also told me that she’s sure another agent will pick it up. So I’ll keep plugging away at it and continue writing the sequel, which by the way, I need to start on the next chapter. If worse comes to worse, I’ll turn it into a script or self publish. But like I had said before. . . . I really want to get it traditionally published, even though it usually takes 2 years to publish.

Anyway, that’s where I am on the writing front. It’s a long ass process because not only do you have to write the book, you have to edit it, rewrite it, edit it, get it critiqued, rewrite it, edit it, do a query letter, do a synopsis, research agents, etc. And then once you get an agent, you go through your manuscript with her and rewrite/edit parts of it before she sends it to publishers. Once you get a publisher, you do the same thing with them. After that, you start marketing your book because really it’s a business and you need to treat it as such. It’s not like once your book gets accepted by a publisher you can kick back and collect the royalty checks. No. You have to totally promote your book and get it out there. It’s a lot of work, but I love it. Sometimes I feel like one of those people who likes pain and pleasure in sex (sadomasochist?), because it’s painful at times, but yet satisfying. Maybe that’s a weird analogy to describe it, but it works for me :).

Now I better get to work before the morning whips by me.