The independent writing community is amazing.

Over the last week, I’ve spent a good amount of time being social.  Not in real life, but on Twitter.  During the week, I’ve learned one very important thing: the independent writing community is fully of amazing, wonderful, and supportive people.

No one’s judging you for wanting to write a book. No one’s trying to pressure you into doing what they did and had luck with. Everyone’s just supportive of one another — offering advice, friendship, asking questions.  It’s been a great experience.  I’m extremely happy with the folks I’ve met through Twitter in the last week. If you’re following me there, thanks!

As for the book – I think I’m done.  I ran through all of Lauren’s edits and finished a week ago.  I then spent hours reading the book as it was, with all of the edits and re-writes and changes, to make sure that I still liked it.  That when I get to the end, I still felt the same way that I felt when I read it the first time.

Since I’m not ready to publish it yet, I’m going to read it once more. I think there’s still a little bit of work that I can do in the early chapters to set the scene a little more appropriately.  I’m still at the mercy of the designer that’s working on the cover art, so I’ve got time before he’ll be ready. (I’m lookin’ at you, Scott!)

All in all, it’s been a pretty inspired week.  Seeing the “final” pages on my iPad and being able to flip through them has been pretty great.  It’s no secret that I was really losing interest in this quest back towards the end of last year when everything sort of came to a screeching halt, but I can honestly say that I’m reinvigorated now by everything that’s happened.

I don’t care if I don’t make any money selling the book — hell, I may even give it away for a while, at first — I just want people to read it.  Though, to be honest, I’m terrified that I’m going to lose my mind at the first negative review I see on Amazon.  I suppose I’ll have to mentally prepare myself for that moment.

The progress continues and I’m inching closer and closer to having this thing be done and on digital shelves through Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble soon.

Total days elapsed since I started writing: 353.

Victory! Editing is done!

Victory!
Victory!

That’s how I feel right now. Victorious. As of approximately 2 hours ago, I’m completely done with all of the editing that came back on the 3rd.

I have to say, the entire editing process was extremely daunting.  I had no idea when I started this thing that it’d be such a chore to read through redline edits and re-incorporate them into my story.  But here we are, approximately 49 weeks after I wrote the first words on March 5th of last year — done.

Well, not fully done.  Done editing.  I have seven chapters that I’m going to rework and add to over the weekend.  Not major edits, but sprucing up a few of the bits within the scenes of those chapters.

If you’ve been following along on my blog here, you know what a monumental day this is for me.  Over the last five or six months I’ve felt somewhat defeated, I ever considered not finishing the book.  But I pressed through, showed patience, and continued to push myself mentally to make sure I finished this thing.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal if you’ve never written a book before, but I can assure you that it’s quite an intense process.  If you’re a ready, I’d suggest thanking your favorite authors — keep buying their books, keep supporting what they love to do.

I thought, a year ago when I started, it’d be so easy to do this.  Just jot some words down on a few pages, click a few buttons, add in some cover art, and call it a day.

If it were that easy, I’d have finished so long ago.

I think, on some level, I actually enjoyed the feedback I got from people about the book — not just my friends and family that read it, but from my editor(s), too.  The hardest bits of constructive criticism to swallow, for me, is trying to figure out why someone doesn’t like one of your characters or plot points.

After spending hours contemplating something so simple — such as the mannerisms of one of your characters — to then have someone tell you that they hate that trait you specifically wrote out in that manner? That’s heartbreaking.  But it’s a good heartbreak. It makes you think of how you could do something better and how you can make that character jump off the page more than he or she already did.

There’s still a long road ahead with this whole thing, but I’m excited to get back on the road.  I don’t anticipate selling millions of copies (heck, I’d be happy selling a hundred). I don’t expect to be on Ellen talking about the book, or have Oprah pick it for book club.  I don’t expect a film to be made. I guess I don’t have any expectations, which means that whatever happens from this point on will have to be viewed in a positive light.

If you’ve been following along here — thanks for coming on this journey with me.  Even though you’ve done nothing but read a blog, it means a lot to me.  Now if I can squeeze a couple of bucks out of you when the book comes out, I’ll be a happy guy.

Stay tuned — we’re almost there!

Back to Editing!

It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here!  Sorry, I’m a bit excited.

I got the final edits from my editor over the weekend after what felt like a few days short of eternity.  Now that I’ve seen the complete edits, I understand why they took so long.  To say that Word’s “Track Changes” contained a lot of red would be a drastic understatement. There was red everywhere — and not just grammatical or spelling corrections, but a lot of story critique which was exactly what I wanted (and needed!)

As of yesterday, I’ve started plowing through the edits.  Slashing chapters, merging paragraphs, and destroying my overuse of negativity.

One of the most helpful things in the entire editing process was Lauren’s summary. She pointed out a bunch of flaws with the story, the characters, and my writing habits.  Most of which I’ve been oblivious to.  Having other people read the book has definitely been helpful, but having an editor read the book and point out what I’m doing wrong has been infinitely helpful.

I’ve enjoyed reading the comments, too.  It hasn’t all been negative (which I sort of feared, from the get-go) and some of the comments have been inspiring.  For the first time in a number of months, I’m feeling positive about this whole decision.

According to my notes, I started writing A Sour Chord on March 5th, 2013.  Just over 11 months ago.  My goal is to finish editing and be completely done with all of the rewrites I’ve got laid out for me by that same date of this year.  Thus making the entire process take exactly a year.

After that I just have to have some cover art designed and then publish the book to the various places I plan on selling it. (Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble, to start.)  I don’t expect much in the way of sales, but hopefully someone somewhere will read it and enjoy it.

I’ve said from the get go — I’m not in this to be famous or make a zillion dollars.  It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do and see through to completion.  It’s a bucket list item, if you will. And I’m glad I’m going to finish it.