Since I made the decision to stop my WIP where it is and continue the story in a sequel, that means it’s revision time!
For those of you who are interested in writing a book but haven’t yet, let me tell you: getting the story down is just the start. There’s so much more to it! As Ernest Hemingway is famous for saying (on the Internet at least):
That’s right. That piece of solid gold you just finished is really just basically a turd that needs much, much polishing before it’s ready to be read by the general public. I can’t stress enough how much polishing it needs. You want that turd to freakin’ sparkle. Blind people with its brilliance.
Unfortunately that takes something called work, and it sucks at times. You have to delete great lines and rewrite terrible ones. You have to rewrite a lot of terrible lines. You’ll reread your first draft and cringe at some of the crap you wrote. You’ll probably want to drink. A lot. But, to quote the immortal Hemingway once again:
I could go on all day with the Hemingway (mostly because I still have the Google tab open), but my point here is to revise, edit, revise, edit, revise, edit, over and over and over again ad nauseum. Then there are alpha readers and beta readers, then more revisions and edits based on their input. I’ve found that critique groups help, and there are plenty on Facebook. Check them carefully; this is your brainchild, and you don’t want it getting kidnapped.
It’s not all sunshine and happiness typing away at the keyboard. This book, like Whispers of Death, will take a ton of work to be ready for publishing…even self-publishing. I might even have to hire a graphic artist for the cover, because my art skills are not skillz, and skillz are what will be needed for this endeavor. (<— see previous line for example of shit lines that are written without revising/editing)
Well, off I go back to diving into my story and refining it until I have the entire thing memorized.
Then, after months of work, it’s on to book two! 🙂
AJ Mullican, Author 