So, I have decided that upon finishing my latest edit of my book, that it’s really time to get myself out of this eddy that I seem to be stuck churning around in and get the project moving forward. While I want the book to be the best it can be, I also want to move on, to start something new, or at least start on book two in the series. I know I can still keep editing away and refining my book while starting on a new one, but I feel now is the time to get some fresh eyes onto my work.

I have been working with a critique group for a year now and it has been an unbelievably rewarding experience. I’ve learned so much from those 3 individuals and I’m truly thankful for them including me in their group.  I can’t recommend writing groups enough to other authors out there, especially if you think that it is too daunting, the thought of showing your work to others. After all, why else do we write if not to let others read it. I was thinking today about how slow this process of refining the work is. I love belting out the first draft, but then everything slows down, substantially, unless you’re a pro who has already refined your process. But for a first time writer, just the sheer amount of time spent waiting for friends to read it, waiting for editors or agents to get back to you, waiting for your online presence to build – it’s staggering. The months fly by and nothing happens and it can be agony.

Then there is all the research you have to do to get your brain up to date with current markets, publishing houses, agencies and on-line book making services. Researching Amazon, kindle, and their various competitors…trying to weigh up between looking for an agent or approaching smaller publishing houses or going indie – it can be exhausting. Trying to develop your personal brand and working out how to make this convoluted and continually evolving industry work for you is something we all must endure. Its all about ensuring that every decision you make is aimed at get your book out there in the best way to serve your individual needs.

Then there are the days you get lost on the net…wading through pages and lists of names and criteria. You may start to feel that maybe you’re not such an individual. Maybe your book is like a single cell in a greater organism and when you step back from yourself you can’t see how your work fits in anymore. You feel like you are being absorbed into a circuit of promotion and marketing hype that just goes round and round like a mad carnival ride and the only way to get out, is to give up.

But you have to keep on believing right? Because the only thing that really matters is that you do the best job that you can and that you are happy and proud of the product you produce.

If you go to an art gallery, you can drift by a hundred paintings in an hour and absorb a fraction of the effort, labour, passion, pain, love, hatred and intention of all the artists that that poured themselves into their work. But a book, is a much more intense commitment. You are asking someone to read every word, to get hooked on every line and to stay with you until the end. When I buy a book, I like to flick to a random page and read a paragraph to get a sense of the authors intention. Can they maintain that enduring enthusiasm so that every paragraph, every line is strong and worthwhile and something that a reader can believe in. Forging that kind of relationship with a reader is a hard ongoing battle. You can’t predict who will love it and who will hate it till you put it out there.

So now it is my turn to be brave and start really thinking about who I can get to look at this work I have crafted. It’s time to find out what more needs to be done in order to get it out there. My book yearns to hunt for ravenous sets of eyes.