How did I get here? A good question.
I was reading and listening to a lot of fantasy books and audiobooks. Then I wondered if I could create something like them.
I zoned out a lot during my commute to and from work. I daydreamed some ideas I thought were cool. I tried typing them out and hated the monstrosities. I had several false starts and finally bought some books on Amazon that I thought would help. They did.
(for the curious: Outlining Your Novel and Structuring Your Novel and I bought them mid-Feb 2018)
I was motivated. I bought pens and sticky notes and handwrote many of my thoughts. I organized them in my trusty college-ruled Top Flight notebook. I drew maps and tried to imagine my world.
The books helped me plan my scenes. The skeleton of my story was what I needed.
To further prove my commitment, I bought a Chromebook. A relatively inexpensive one. It was light and fit nicely in my backpack. There was no going back now!
I clicked and clicked away on my keyboard. Thousands of words later, I had delusions of grandeur. I was going to be famous! jk. That wasn’t the driver. I really wanted to finish something. To create something. To put something out there, say “I did it!” and be proud of it. THAT was the driver.
How was I going to do it? Should I submit my manuscript to publishers? No, I’m super impatient and can’t handle rejection. I decided to self-publish. But where? Then came the research. I selected BookBaby. Maybe I’ll write a separate journal entry why, but for the most part, it is because I’m a n00b.
I also wanted to make sure I had good editing. I browsed all sorts of websites. The /r/selfpublish subreddit has a wiki that’s pretty helpful. I ended up on various freelancer websites. It was expensive. It was way more than I wanted to spend. I decided to ask a friend (super qualified) to do it.
I obviously wasn’t going to ask him to do it for free! What kind of friend would I be!? However, he gave me rates less than the industry standard… much less. Because he’s a damn good friend. He’s creative, funny, and fucking brilliant… and probably the only person I’d trust with my first draft.
I was about 30k words into it when I approached him. My novel was broken down into sections with 10k words each. He reviews a section each week and we have meetings on Sunday nights to discuss (unless a Cavs game got in the way).
I found someone on fiverr to convert my map sketches into clean digital files. It was cheap and a great experience.
I found a different freelancer, not on fiverr, to paint digital artwork for my cover. I think she did wonderfully! (Shout out to Natalie Marten. She is awesome!)
I found three different designers for the book cover on fiverr. It started out bad, got a little better, and finally got to a place where I was happy with it.
So now, here I am with an 81k word manuscript! I have about 20k words left that need line editing and copy editing. And then I have two rounds of proofreading. Then we have to do some formatting! Still a lot left to do :/
But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I love how it’s shaping up. I still have some homework to do. Tidy up this website, start tweeting, get a PO BOX address, and a myriad of other odds and ends.
I am almost there.