Writing is easy, then comes editing...

I have to admit I had no idea how writing, editing, the industry itself works when I began with my first novel. I asked a friend who said,' You just send an overview and the first few chapters to a publisher and that's it.' Easy, I thought.

My aim was 120k. Why? Because I didn't know better. So every day I typed and typed, edited as I went along and in 2.5 months, my brand new baby was complete. My friend did the cold reading, commenting along, but it seemed I've done a good job plotting and creating scenes and characters, looking back with the knowledge I've got now, she didn't suggest anything major.

Then I went on the hunt for publishers, thinking, well the book is SO great, they'll rip it out of my hands and the editor will fix my Germisch. That's what all my non-writer friends believed, too.
What an awakening when I learned about authonomy and that publishers want a near-perfect manuscript. What? They won't invest their money into me, the raw diamond and future best selling author? Their loss! Rejections proved others were right, I was wrong.

Thrown off the high horse of dreams, I got down to business and learned as much as I could about writing and editing. And there's a lot to know about. With every new thing I learned, I went through my manuscript, cutting out long-winded passages that cost me hours to write, changed dialogue attributes back and forth, comparing published books with my humble scribblings. Went through it again and again and again and.... ended up hating my book.

I tend to read books only once, twice perhaps if I really like it. Imagine to have to read a book up to fourteen times and even being the one who wrote it! It's painful. I procrastinated, I pushed off, I neglected and at some time I plainly didn't want to go near it anymore. I put it aside after the 13th edit and wrote two other books instead.

After a few months, I decided I need to get it over with, because I still believed in this book, it's my baby in the end and I want to get it out there, pretty and entertaining and maybe even successful, it didn't deserve to be hidden away. And somewhere along the process of reading and making small alterations, I fell in love again. Tonight, I've finished the last chapter of a 82.382 k novel and by end of May, it will be available to download on kindle, hopefully also on smashwords and nook. I can't wait!

The end is in sight, sort of.

The end of my novel, that is. I'm at about 49k now and I aim at roughly 70k. It's been a long journey so far, but even if it hurt a lot of times, sitting in front of the laptop, not being able to write a single word in thirty minutes, then finish writing, a few hours later, having only written 244 words. But I'd rather write little that is brilliant, than 2440 words that are not up to my standards.

I'm very proud of this book, its uniqueness, the style and that I actually am writing it. Close to my heart, I still manage to stand back and watch the two MCs interacting. Though, I admit, there are quite a few parts where a lot of me went into it and will certainly continue to go in.

Christmas is going to be used to push it further up the word-count-ladder and I'm looking forward to it. I love the peace on those days.

Wish you all a good time, too.

Love,

Stella