THE NAIL BITING PUBLISHING EXPERIENCE

First off, apologies – this blog is huge! It is a big topic so I have broken it into two parts – will post part 2 during the week. But I have found it is a subject a lot of people are interested in.

When I first started on the road to becoming a published author, I had no idea what to expect. I knew it wasn’t as simple as write a good story and publishers around the world will drop everything to read your manuscript (in complete) simply because I said, ‘hey, trust me, it’s good!’

So … what’s it all about?

What do you do once you write that amazing story?

Who do you tell?

And what happens then?

These are only a couple of the many questions that floated through my mind and I have discovered it is much the same for everyone. So, here is some of what I learnt:

1. Completing a manuscript – whether good, bad or in the murky middle ground is a monumental thing! There is a very large percentage of the world’s population that think they could write a great book and many have every intention of getting around to it on the day that never seems to arrive. A finished manuscript is a BIG thing, so if anyone reading this is sitting on one of those rare completed stories – well done you! Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t mean all too much, but definitely pat-on-the-back worthy.

2. Having a completed manuscript is great, but is it any good? Tough question – usually with even tougher answers. The fact is – I wrote my first draft of EMBRACE in 6 weeks. The story came to me quickly and the plot worked together nicely – but tweaking, re-writing, making changes, cutting exposition and of course, ‘killing my darlings’ all took time. It was on about my 5th draft of EMBRACE that I thought to myself – yeah, I’m ready to do something with this.

SO what was I going to do?

Damned if I knew!

3. But really, I did. You have to start handing out the manuscript to people to read and generally, the first people you can convince to read this great pile of a story you ‘claim’ has potential, are the people who love you. It is no small thing to give it out. For me, my heart had gone into that story and characters and I knew, yeah … we all know, family and loved ones are usually crap at lying. Plus, I’d never handed out anything I’d written to anyone to read before and I was FREAKING OUT.
The question was … could I take the criticism and work it to my advantage? The answer, yes! I wasn’t about to let fear of failure stop me from trying but that didn’t mean I didn’t sweat bullets through the entire process!!!

4. Ah, family … My personal favourite – the vigorous nod, short worded ‘Uh-ha. Loved it. Really good,’ followed by speedy trip to the fridge for unwanted drink and driven home with abrupt subject change. Err … cringing just thinking of it! Because I did get a few of those and maybe it was because they didn’t like it and maybe (more likely, I told myself) it just wasn’t their cup of tea, which was fair enough, too. But on the whole, my family and friends gave me a pretty genuine thumbs up – not that any of them had any idea whether that meant it was good enough to be published or not….

5. Then, I sent if off to have a manuscript assessment. It took about a month and funnily enough during the that time I’d made many of the changes or addressed problems the assessment drew my attention to but it was a great way to reaffirm many of my instincts.

6. So what now?

7. Use the feedback and rewrite again.
This is the time I really had to dig deep. Based on feedback I had to decide what was right – the parts I was just turning a blind eye to, and what was matter of opinion. It was at this time that I rewrote the first 5 chapters and let me tell you, it was not easy to let go of the ones I’d previously written – there were some scenes that I just adored. But, just because you love them as a writer doesn’t make them absolutely essential to the telling of this particular story – so, they had to go.
When I finally made the leap and changed the beginning of the manuscript it was then that I finally tapped into my heroine’s voice and I found it had an on-flow effect to the entire manuscript. It felt a bit like striking gold!

8. BUT … and this is very important. There were a fair few things that people said, opinions about characters or the directions scenes should go in that I didn’t agree with. It was here that I had to TRUST MYSELF. A story can only be good if you believe in it fully, in the characters, their motivations, their emotions, all of it. Someone else might believe it would be more appropriate or entertaining to go in a different direction and sure, sometimes you might take on their advice and play with it, but if it doesn’t work you just have to go with your instinct. To me, this is one of the most IMPORTANT assets for any writer.


To be continued ...