From First Draft to Real Book
I finished the first draft of Lydia, which I knew was approximately step 10 in a 5,000-step journey. I’ve published two books before, a children’s book and a cookbook, along with multiple digital downloads, so I’m not completely new to publishing. But this feels entirely different. There is a rather enormous distance between “I wrote 300 pages” and “this is something I would confidently ask another human being to pay money to read.”
So that’s where I am. I’m editing SO much, and I think this is the stage that will make or break all the work I’ve done. I don’t want to get impatient. I’d rather spend way too long making one book as good as I possibly can than whip it out so I can move on to the next one. If there even is a next one.
I’m moving clues around, changing conversations, fixing timelines, researching things I conveniently wrote around the first time, and getting to know these characters in a way I couldn’t before I’d written the whole story. Sometimes I spend hours fixing something and realize the next morning I’ve made it worse. Sometimes one tiny change suddenly fixes three chapters. And sometimes I change something on page 40 and realize I’ve completely screwed myself 200 pages later.
It is SO much harder than I thought it would be, but I absolutely love it. Strategy is my number one StrengthsFinder strength, and this book feels like an enormous puzzle my brain gets to solve. Move one piece and suddenly three others fit. Move the wrong one and you’ve destroyed an entire corner. It lights me up.
My Brain Is Very Happy Here
I’ve spent years creating things for the internet, and I genuinely love what I do, but writing fiction uses a completely different part of my brain. Nobody is waiting for it tomorrow. There isn’t an algorithm deciding whether Chapter 12 performed well. I don’t have to hook you in the first three seconds or figure out how to turn it into a Reel.
I can sit with something for longer than 24 hours. I can spend an entire afternoon thinking about why Lydia wouldn’t say one particular sentence. I can research some completely obscure detail from 1902 because it matters to a scene approximately six people may ever notice. I’ll go to bed stuck on something and wake up knowing exactly what needs to happen.
And, at least for now, it’s all mine. No one else’s opinions. No performance metrics. No analytics telling me whether people liked Chapter Seven better than Chapter Six. Just me trying to make the story better.
If you know me and my ADHD brain, you know how thoroughly a creative project can take over my life. See: Delft tiles.
Lydia has me.
Now I Have to Turn It Into a Book
I’m leaning pretty heavily toward self-publishing Lydia. I haven’t made every decision yet, but the more I think about what I want this book to become, the more self-publishing appeals to me.
I care about the physical book. I care about the cover, the paper, the typography and whether there is a map inside. I have an entire world that doesn’t fit neatly into the manuscript: family histories, maps, character backstories, images, research and subplots I’ve cut but still love. I want the freedom to figure out how much of that world can become part of the experience.
Of course, self-publishing comes with plenty of hurdles of its own. Editing. Typesetting. Cover design. Printing. Distribution. All words I understand individually and processes I am definitely not current on.
So I’m going to learn.
And I’m going to share what I learn as I go, including what works, what doesn’t and the things I inevitably get completely wrong. Even after publishing two books, this is new territory for me.
Right now, this is where we are:
First draft: DONE
Rewriting: VERY MUCH HAPPENING
Professional editor: Next
Beta readers
Final edits
Design
Publishing
Holding Lydia in my hands and probably crying: THE GOAL
And Then I Have to Give It to You
This is honestly the scariest part of the entire process.
Soon I have to hand Lydia to people who don’t already know everything I know and ask them to tell me what’s wrong with her.
It’s basically asking people to rate my baby.
But because this story has a mystery woven through it, I need more than “I liked it!” I need to know exactly what happened in your brain while you were reading. Who did you trust? Who did you hate? When did you become suspicious? What did you think was going to happen? Where were you bored? Where were you confused? Did you figure something out on page 100 that I thought I was brilliantly concealing until page 250?
I need all of it, and I need it honestly.
I’ve been inside this story for so long that I can’t experience it the way a new reader does anymore. As painful as I’m sure some of the feedback will be, I have to put my pride aside because I’d much rather hear what’s wrong while I can still fix it than protect my feelings and publish a worse book.
If reading an unfinished novel, forming strong opinions about fictional people and then reporting those opinions directly to me sounds like a delightful use of your time, I would genuinely love your help.
And if that sounds absolutely terrible but you’d still like to read Lydia once I’ve stopped messing with her:
