Twenty Years

Sometime in September of 2004, I finished the first draft of my first novel.  I called it SPECTACLE. (Yeah, that's partly why this blog is named what it is.)  I started writing it about 9 months before, which I guess was fitting for my first brain baby.  And it was a big one.  Spectacle weighed it at about 147,000 words.  It's epic.  EPIC.  And it made my husband fall in love with me, but that beside the point.

Last week, I finished the first draft of what will become my 18th published novel.  Spectacle is not one of them.  It's epic but it's also not ready for public consumption.  I've learned a lot since I wrote that.  Oh, I still believe it's pretty damn good, but my writing style has improved and my voice has morphed some as I grew as a writer.  I did look into having the thing edited a few years back.  The cost of editing was and is a tad prohibitive.  I think I was quoted over $1000,  Not surprising because it's a behemoth and I'm too close to it to want to cut anything to even get that price down.  I think that's a fair price... I just can't afford it.  

I spent A LOT of time writing query letters and synopses and blurbs.  I spent a lot of time and money mailing out queries and SASEs (that's a self-addressed stamped envelope for any youngin' who happened to be around - we used to have to put those in with the queries we MAILED in order to know for sure we'd been rejected).  Finally, I gave up and wrote another book, which went through the same process - query, rejection, giving up.  And another.  And another.  And... you get the picture.  It was a process I would repeat for nearly ELEVEN YEARS.

For all those years, I followed all the rules.  I researched a lot, learning everything I could about writing and the subjects I was writing about.  I also wrote a lot.  And I edited until my eyes were crossed and I thought my head would explode.  I had betas and first readers and critique partners.  I used every resource available.  At one point, I even re-edited Spectacle for the hundredth time, renamed it FEAR ITSELF, and sent it through the query mill again.

Then in the late summer / early fall of 2014, Hubs and I had a discussion.  This whole 'trying to get an agent' thing was not going anywhere.  And with the state of self-publishing... it becoming more widely accepted and so much easier than it had been ten years before, we made the decision to stop trying to get an agent or get my books traditionally published.  I found an editor, I found a cover artist, and we went for it.  In February of 2015, DYING EMBERS made its way into the world.  

The rest, as they say, is history.  

I'm not sure if I'll ever send Fear Itself into the world.  I should.  It's still a good book.  But we always think that about our brain children, don't we?  

So, yeah, it's been twenty years since I entered the game.  Threw my hat into the ring to become a published novelist, if you will.  I'd have an anniversary celebration if I could remember the exact date I typed THE END on Spectacle and meant it.  I'll probably do something for Dying Embers in February.  A sale or something.   If I remember.  We'll see how it goes.