I did it. Earlier this summer, I set two random tasks I wanted to accomplish by Labor Day; one – to run a mile without stopping (I miraculously did this almost one month ago), and two – have the rough draft of my novel completed. After several late nights, multiple trips to Culvers (as I stopped cooking anything that took more than fifteen minutes), and one very tired butt (what can only be described as a First World problem), I trussed that story up like a turkey on Thanksgiving – two days early I might add.
I spent my weekend slow cooking a Cuban pork roast, playing Lego Star Wars on a PS2 (unsurprisingly, my five year old already understands the game better than I do), and savoring a general sense of accomplishment. I think Chuck Wendig says it best in his blog on the Life Cycle of a Novel (check out his saucy, entertaining blogs). Stage 11 is “Oh my God. It’s done. It’s done. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA! Eeeee! Woo!” Yep, that’s about right.
Then the weekend wrapped up, the kids trotted back to school and I’ve entered stage 12 – “Oh my God. It’s… it’s not done. Is it? This was just the first lap. It’s all uphill from here. Oh. Oh, no.”
This was promptly followed by the more specific stage 13, “The realization hits like a nail from a nail gun: you’ve got a lot more work to do. The boulder must be pushed up the rock again. And again. And again. Your book is a boat anchor whose chain is wrapped around your ankle. It weighs you down. It’s a brick. A bludgeoning brick. Bricks and boat anchors and boulders, oh my. Dread assails you. Fatigue nibbles at your marrow like an army of tiny chipmunks.”
I especially feel the chipmunks, I’ve got a lot of those running around (by the smell of things – there’s probably a skunk out there too – or maybe that’s just the leftover pork bone I gave my dog yesterday creating new gaseous elements in her intestines).
So now what the *&!$@ do I do (my mom reads this – I can’t swear too much – Hi mom!)?
When I shared my giddiness with friends this weekend, they asked, “So now what?” Good question. Based on magazine articles and numerous websites I’ve read, the general process for publishing a novel goes as follows: When I deem my novel “done”, I’ll send query letters to agents (I fantasize a lot about this step). I understand this is a painful and soul-crushing process. If I’m lucky, an agent will ask for the manuscript, and sign me as a client. Then stage two of soul-crushing begins, when the book is shopped to publishing houses. Assuming a publisher likes it, I may actually have a book in print a couple years from now (fingers crossed). At any point along the line, rejection can drop on my head like an Acme safe, leaving only dazed tweeting birds where dreams of NY Times Bestseller lists once hovered.
But how do I know when it’s ready to send? Right now, the word count is under 65000 words, a little short of my goal, but I’m confident it will increase with revision. And I need to revise – a lot. I have plot holes, characters who need more development, and clunky sentences all over the place.
Thankfully, I have years of collegiate and technical writing experience to fall back on. Revision has always been my friend; give me some raw sentences, and I can shake it up till it shines. At least that held true when discussing the religious parallels between Paradise Lost and Aurora Leigh or explaining the steps for creating distribution lists in Outlook.
My first step, dear reader, is to make an outline of my book so I can quickly see every plot point. I hope this makes it obvious where I need to add more information, if I need to switch scenes around, or if a section needs a complete overhaul. I need to be ruthless; look at the novel as if I’ve never seen it before.
So, dear reader, we begin a new phase of writing; time to shake the chipmunks off and start pushing the rock. Again.
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