The End is The Beginning

I finished writing the book last night.

That is to say I finished a somewhat fine-tuned version of the first draft of the book. I have a completed manuscript. Everything is in place, and the story goes from Point A to Point B to Point C all the way through to The End.

Several years ago, there was a guy who came to substitute teach at my school occasionally. He had once been a teacher there, but left the profession to become a writer after he'd had a couple of his books published. He and I were talking about writing one day, as we often did when he was in the building. But this day was different, because I had just recently found out that I play I had written was going to be produced by a local community theater. The whole thing was little more than an accident that it even happened, especially since I know so little about the theater, but I was excited all the same. He congratulated me on the milestone, and recommended that I don't say anything about it to anyone at school. His reason was because once the news was out, all of these well-meaning and supportive people who didn't know as much about such things would be asking about the progress while not understanding how glacial the process is.

The point I'm trying to make here is that now that the manuscript is finished, people are going to hear that and start reflexively asking, "So when will you get it published? When can I buy my copy?" and so on. And I'm here to tell you that it just. does. not. work. that. way. There are always exceptions, but there is a pretty set procedure in the publishing world about how a manuscript evolves into a published book, if ever. This is now where the hard work begins, and the non-writers in the world don't always seem to get that. Here's what happens from this point:

1 - I get feedback and decide what I agree with and what I don't. This is not so easy, because most people who will read the book will praise the book with vague compliments because they either don't feel qualified to make a criticism about it or they read it from just the eye of a reader. There's nothing wrong with this, because obviously if I write something I want it to be read and considered, and the more people that do that... well, great. But at this stage I need someone to tell me which characters don't need to exist, and what phrases I used as crutches, and so on. Luckily I have a small number of people who will do that for me.

2 - I edit and revise. This is where a lot of the work gets done. Frankly, I don't think I'll have a lot to do with this one because I've been working on it for at least thirteen years, and there has been bits of editing and revising and reforming the story gradually happening all along. I think I've got it pretty tight now. But there are always grammatical and continuity errors to address, and every time I reread something I've written I can find something I would want to do differently.

3 - I research literary agencies, looking for an agent who I think would understand the book and know what to do with it in the marketplace.

4 - I query the agents. You don't just call up agencies and hire someone; you have to convince them to take you on as a client. You write a query letter that describes the book in a manner that will catch their curiosity. Most of the time they'll blow you off, but if you're lucky they'll ask to see some preview pages, maybe about 30 or so, and they'll use that as a sample to determine if they want to see the rest of the book. It's rare to get to this point. I haven't reached that stage yet, but granted, I haven't tried particularly hard either.

5 - If you land an agent, you make the representation deal with them and they get to work on trying to find a publisher who will want your book.

It all seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? The biggest problem is that for every legitimately good manuscript (like I feel mine is) there are tens of thousands of people out there who THINK they can write and gum up the system with a lot of really awful writing and horrible manuscripts. Which makes it harder for agents and publishers to pick out the worthy projects, because they get so buried in so much crap. There are agencies and publishers out there that employ people who do nothing but read previews and determine if they're any good, and then pass them along to the real agents. If you did this all day long, every day, do you think you'd start to glaze over at the reams of paper you read day?

That's just how the system works, and it's really, really hard to break through. My goal is to be able to walk into my local Borders store someday and see my book on the shelf. For me to achieve that, I've got some hoops to jump through. And the whole thing could take years to happen, with the odds being against that it ever will. Am I bitter? No. Not at all. I'm very happy for what I've done, and publishing a book has always been a goal, and one that I still think I have a chance at doing. As long as I still believe that I have something that could make that happen, I just keep trying. But this time? I think I'll be trying harder. Because I really think this one has the potential.