My Muse (Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes) is my jockey and I'm the racehorse about to break down right at the finish line. However, I'm still amazed to report that we are both in the homestretch of getting the first draft completed. (Okay, technically it's not a first draft. I must have written Part I nearly 30 times. The book will have five parts and I'm over halfway completed Part V, so I'm still calling it a first draft. Don't argue with me. I'm writing.)
Getting the first draft done means (of course) that the book is not ready for prime time just yet. After the first draft is finished, I will then still need to:
- Edit
- Reformat the Microsoft Word document to whatever format Amazon handles
- Edit it some more
- Somehow figure out a cover image for the damn thing (!)
- Edit is some more
- Go through a final internal argument where I decide whether to go for "mere" ebook publishing or try to send the damn thing to a traditional publisher (and have it ignored for ten years)
- Market it when it's published in whatever format it comes out as.
It's actually getting scary now. So far, no one has seen this manuscript except my Muse. Letting someone else read it means that someone could really hate it. Or, worse yet, I could place the book up on Amazon.com and sell not one friggin' copy. As Holmes is saying in this scene from
The Second Stain, "Every man's hand is against us."
Well, now I know what I'll have nightmares about tonight.
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