So last night I finished my very first book, and handed it over to my wife for its inaugural review. From the other room I could hear her chuckle (yes!), which was followed by a long period of silence (oh no!). To keep from wondering if she would give it the kiss of death, I busied myself with the dishes and piles of papers on our kitchen island. The stack of unpaid bills and unread magazines never looked so good.
My wife’s an extremely fast reader, and she blazed through a year’s worth of work in one evening. She’ll probably finish the other year of work while eating breakfast tomorrow. All that rewriting, rewording, rearranging, reediting, and reexamining, consumed over the course of a couple days. Oomph. It’s enough to give you indigestion. But it was all worth it to hear her say “this is funny. I love it.”
Even if she didn’t like it, I wasn’t too concerned. The long, hard effort of putting a book together, and reworking it until it was something I was happy with, was enough. Well, kinda. Okay, I was really hoping like hell she’d like it. When she interrupted conversation with me to continue reading, I knew she really did.
But what do I do now? An author friend told me I needed to get on Query Tracker to find an agent. Googling other “helpful” sites for writers led me to Writer’s Digest. Writer’s Digest led me to articles regarding what agent’s want, which led me to sample query letters I need to write in order to pitch my book to them. Shit, I’ve got to put a business plan together? I thought I was writing because I was sick of working in business. Ok, what do I gotta do?
Most of the sample letters I found noted that the submitting author needed some sort of online presence, with a blog and numerous followers, which could lend itself to selling more books. If you want someone to publish your work kid, you gotta be able to sell it. So here I am, blogging as part of the “process”. Am I doing this right?
Why am I here, blogging for the first time? It’s not to make money, is it? No, not really. I have a job, one that I like very much, actually. But I’d rather write. If writing could pay the bills, well, yeah, that would be sweet. But I just love writing. So, if I’m going to move forward with it, shouldn’t I indulge myself with writing on as many platforms as possible? Besides, if I can’t find a publisher for my first book, I’ll just self-publish so I can move on to the next book. I’m not here for the fame, I’m here for the practice.
