I finished it! Okay, I finished the FIRST DRAFT of Rogue Memory, but I got the book done on Friday! It took 11 hours, 6 cans of Diet Coke, and pretty much all of my brain cells, but I got it done. I wrote 13,000 words, and the story went 5K over what I was planning on, but a lot of that will be taken out during the editing process.
Which I am starting today…This is the first run through that I do to try to fix any mistakes, like say, I changed the hero’s hair color mid way through the story. After this edit, I will send it to my critique partners to get their feedback and then go in again and fix more things.
Now, in my old writing life, I would then send it to my editor, but now in this brave new self-publishing world? I’m not sure how exactly this is going to go. I sent Rogue Medicine to a company who is doing an alpha read, something I’d never heard of before. They sent me feedback on the first 5 chapters and I’m pretty impressed. I really don’t know what the next step is in the process, and honestly, I’m broke so I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford the next step.
This is a different world than I’m used to, and I find myself worried I’m going to get taken advantage of in it. I also worry that I’m never going to make back the money I’m laying out upfront. I don’t write because I think I’ll become a rich, famous, best-selling author. (Although Universe, I’m totally open to that if you want to make it happen.) I write because I love to write and it keeps me sane. In a perfect world, I’d write the books, edit them, and hand them off to someone who would make the magic happen and then I’d collect royalties. Unfortunately, that world doesn’t exist, so I actually need to work at the business end of writing too.
Bummer.
So I’m up and at ’em early today, to do the part of the writing process I know I can do, and I’ll worry about the rest another time…
