Early in the novel writing process, the feeling is one of free-flowing creativity with infinite opportunity. As the plot comes together, some of that freedom dissipates and the opportunities become limited. As the drafting process unfolds, it feels like an equilibrium of liberty and constraint, the guardrails of the plot providing necessary focus on the creative act of writing. Then the rough draft of the manuscript is completed in a burst of joy and it goes on the shelf, to be forgotten over a period of weeks. When it is eventually picked up, the tasks become well-defined. There are bursts of creativity, but it is mostly work. It’s good work, but it feels like work and not play.
The next four months will consist of much work:
- Three to four weeks of heavy editing on Alchemy, taking a rough manuscript and sculpting it into something worth reading. During this time, once I’ve confirmed everything is going to be OK, I will put up the pre-order on Amazon.
- After handing off the semi-polished draft manuscript to the editor, I will again pick up the plot outline to book 3 and, while the Alchemy story is fresh, attempt to add some meat to book 3’s bones.
- Upon receiving the edited draft manuscript and editorial commentary, I will then dive into another two or three weeks of editing, this time more targeted at making the recommended changes and strengthening the weak points of the story.
- Again, the book goes on the shelf for a short time while I work on publishing tasks.
- When it comes off the shelf again, I do a final lightweight line edit, polishing bits of rough language into gleaming prose and ensuring there are no glaring grammatical or spelling errors.
- Finally, after formatting the finished ebook product, I will upload it to Amazon to be delivered to readers.
Somewhere in there will also be a beta read by some lucky (unlucky?) readers and an attempt to gather some advance reviews to ensure publishing goes without a hitch.
This should be a busy 4 months, but the end result is worth the effort – Alchemy: Book 2 of Psycons & Grace.