Update
I have jumped another hurdle in terms of the potential professional publication of Pivot. In addition, I am working on the second book of the series.
It is interesting to me that there are so many parts and pieces to the publishing process. When I first talked with the people I'm working with, they told me "There are usually three revisions before an agent, three revisions with an agent, and three revisions with a publisher." And that is sometimes true, sometimes isn't (it depends on the book). But there are other things you have to take into consideration that I hadn't thought about before.
One of the things that many professionals have talked to me about is, basically, "How does your book compare to others in the genre?" Who do you write like? What other story is comparable to yours? Is your book longer or shorter than others in the same genre? All of these questions have to have answers because these are the questions they will ask you.
Another important point that has been made to me is that you want your book as perfect as possible before you send it off to an agent or publisher. One of the reasons for this is that, once you read a book and get a sense of it, you can never have your first reading experience of it again. In other words, once you enter a room, you can never enter it again as though it is the first time. So, if the room changes, you are, essentially, watching the furniture move around, but you are never re-experiencing the new-looking room for the first time again. It makes revising more difficult for agents and/or publishers if there is still a lot of work to be done, because they can't be as objective down the line as they need to be. If they were to take on a project that needs a lot of work, they would be kind of numb to the power that the book has because they've been working on it for so long. That's not sustainable.
Along the same line of thought, I have found that people should not underestimate the power of the first encounter with a book or movie. There is a power in someone sitting down and reading in ten or so hours what it took two years to create. This means that there is a kind of "POW!" already built into the system. And, thus, you can trust in the system of the book, the rules of storytelling, rather than trying to create your own kind of POW! by breaking all of the rules.
Speaking of rules... one thing that I enjoy about working with others is that they bring you back to rules you have not adequately judged as being important to the creation of the novel. Plots, subplots, characters, minor characters, villains, protagonists, etc. all have to be map-able. Thus, rules have to be followed (at least some of them some of the time). And so, it's nice to be forced to try something you have been avoiding, and then discover it works. GOOD objective advice brings out the better parts of your writing - parts you have not thought to exercise, parts that help you write beyond what you thought you could.
And, lastly, I will reiterate what I have mentioned before when it comes to writing and success. Successful writing - whether it's a book, a script, an essay, an article, a presentation - occurs when you write beyond what you know. When you sit down and you write only what you know, there is a sense of a kind of failure. But it is when you write and write and write to the point of creating something you didn't know you knew (that then causes you to look at the entirety of the piece in a different way) that you have succeeded.
It is interesting to me that there are so many parts and pieces to the publishing process. When I first talked with the people I'm working with, they told me "There are usually three revisions before an agent, three revisions with an agent, and three revisions with a publisher." And that is sometimes true, sometimes isn't (it depends on the book). But there are other things you have to take into consideration that I hadn't thought about before.
One of the things that many professionals have talked to me about is, basically, "How does your book compare to others in the genre?" Who do you write like? What other story is comparable to yours? Is your book longer or shorter than others in the same genre? All of these questions have to have answers because these are the questions they will ask you.
Another important point that has been made to me is that you want your book as perfect as possible before you send it off to an agent or publisher. One of the reasons for this is that, once you read a book and get a sense of it, you can never have your first reading experience of it again. In other words, once you enter a room, you can never enter it again as though it is the first time. So, if the room changes, you are, essentially, watching the furniture move around, but you are never re-experiencing the new-looking room for the first time again. It makes revising more difficult for agents and/or publishers if there is still a lot of work to be done, because they can't be as objective down the line as they need to be. If they were to take on a project that needs a lot of work, they would be kind of numb to the power that the book has because they've been working on it for so long. That's not sustainable.
Along the same line of thought, I have found that people should not underestimate the power of the first encounter with a book or movie. There is a power in someone sitting down and reading in ten or so hours what it took two years to create. This means that there is a kind of "POW!" already built into the system. And, thus, you can trust in the system of the book, the rules of storytelling, rather than trying to create your own kind of POW! by breaking all of the rules.
Speaking of rules... one thing that I enjoy about working with others is that they bring you back to rules you have not adequately judged as being important to the creation of the novel. Plots, subplots, characters, minor characters, villains, protagonists, etc. all have to be map-able. Thus, rules have to be followed (at least some of them some of the time). And so, it's nice to be forced to try something you have been avoiding, and then discover it works. GOOD objective advice brings out the better parts of your writing - parts you have not thought to exercise, parts that help you write beyond what you thought you could.
And, lastly, I will reiterate what I have mentioned before when it comes to writing and success. Successful writing - whether it's a book, a script, an essay, an article, a presentation - occurs when you write beyond what you know. When you sit down and you write only what you know, there is a sense of a kind of failure. But it is when you write and write and write to the point of creating something you didn't know you knew (that then causes you to look at the entirety of the piece in a different way) that you have succeeded.
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