As of today, I am able to cross off the 6th week milestone on my 12 week plan to finish a book.
Which (for those of you who aren’t so great with the math may not realize) means that I am officially half way there to having a completed first draft.
I wish I could say that completing the first draft was all that was involved in the process and that I would have a published book by May, but of course – we all know that isn’t the case. There will be a few months of editing after the fact (turns out I have issues with fragmented sentences and the occasional grammatical error – who knew?!?) and then a long road to travel in terms of trying to actually get it in print. None of this will be especially quick or easy, but I am still excited. And extremely passionate about what I’m putting together. I want more than anything to eventually see it bound and printed and sitting on bookshelves all around the world, but until that day… I need to decide on the best method for going about making that happen.
Two months ago, I can honestly say that I really thought there was only one way to publish a book. Through blood, sweat, and tears you would query agent after agent until finally (sometimes years down the line) you would convince one that your book was good enough to approach big publishers with. I have to admit that the idea of traveling that road is one of the things that has held me back from taking this leap for so long. I am terrified of a long, drawn-out process where I face so much rejection that eventually, I may just give up. I don’t handle failure so well… we’ve covered that already, correct?
I’ve been doing a lot of reading though, and have been blessed to get some advice and information from some who have been down this road themselves. It is opening my eyes up to a whole other world of possibilities, and while I am still trying to decide what the best route for me to take in getting published will be – I am starting to believe more and more that the agent and big publisher’s destination may not be the right road for me.
You see, I would love to write for a living. More than anything, I would love to make this my career. I don’t need to ever get rich off of it, but if I could pay my bills and put food on my table through writing – I would happily live out my life with my laptop pumping out book after book after book.
But this first book? I don’t need it to be a best seller. I don’t even need it to be the one that makes writing a career for me. I just need it to be the piece that shows me I can do this. I need it to be the book I can put on my shelf and look at with pride as I move forward on all the other projects I have in mind. I need to know that there are people in this world who have spent money on it and loved it, but I don’t need it to be world renowned or the piece bound to make me famous.
I just need to be able to say I’ve written a book, and that it’s meant something to someone else (anyone else). I need it to hopefully be my foot in the door, giving me the confidence to start pursuing some of these other ideas banging around in my head.
Years and years of rejection and fighting an uphill battle for this first book just doesn’t really appeal as much to me now that I know there are other options.
I think I have a plan in mind for how I’m going to go about this once I have a finished product, but I would love to know if any of you have any firsthand experience in this world as well. Agents or publishers you would recommend querying, or tips on self publishing. Or if you have any friends or family members who have managed to get books on the shelves themselves, what have you learned from them? What tips and advice do you have for a first time author? And what path would you take if you had something you yourself wanted to get published?
I can honestly say that 2 months ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of self publishing. It seemed like the path people would take who didn’t have something good enough to get published professionally. I’m still not entirely sold on it, and I don’t like the idea of needing to make an upfront investment myself, but… the options have me thinking.
And now, I want to know what you think. What you know. What you have experienced or seen for yourself.
There is a conversation over on the community that I would love for you to participate in if you have any thoughts or ideas. Please hop on over to join in on the discussion, even if it’s just to throw in your two cents on what you think I should do once I have a finished product in hand.
But in the meantime… I am half way there.
And knowing I am going to have a completed first draft by my 29th birthday, is a pretty incredible feeling indeed!
Getting it in print by 30, would just be the icing on the cake.
ADSPACE
