I'm Done!

I'm done! Kinda, sorta, maybe. I signed up to participate in the book in a month challenge which ends today. Little did I know exactly what that would entail when I started. I began with a blank page on that first day a month ago with the goal of putting in roughly fifty pages a week. Since my last few books have been drafted in about a month's time, I was excited to go through the process with other writers to help cheer me on and that I could help encourage.

Not even a week passed before my goals changed drastically. My novel, Freefall, is coming out in the spring and it dawned on me that I had not yet been asked to abridge it for the audio book. I foolishly hoped that an abridgement wouldn't be necessary, but deep down I knew better. So, after checking in with my editor, I put my newest project (all 27 pages) on a shelf and started on the abridgement process. (If you want to see how painful it was, look at my earlier posts!)

I was just finishing that process when I received another novel that my sister-in-law had been reviewing. That led me to decide to do some editing on that one (Lockdown) and prepare it for submission. That was three weeks ago.

Here's where I should put a plug in about how you should never ask a question if you aren't ready to hear the answer. As I was submitting Lockdown, I asked my editor what was happening with yet another novel (working title Royal Hearts) that I had submitted a few months earlier. The evaluations were in, but only two were favorable. The third suggested some major changes. So, my book in a month challenge became a "submit two books in a month challenge" instead. My editor sent me the evaluations, which I looked over and tried to dissect. I rewrote the novel, sent it out to my sister-in-law for her invaluable suggestions and then rewrote again.

Yesterday morning, finally, I was able to send in the revised manuscript. Now I am keeping my fingers crossed (at least when I'm not typing) that the two novels I've submitted will be well received by my publisher. Whoever thinks it's tough writing a novel hasn't yet suffered through the long weeks, sometimes months, of waiting to see if the fruits of their labors will be realized. For those of you out there playing the waiting game, I feel your pain!