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.