In April 2005, I was sent away for an “enforced vacation” – most people call it a layoff. I called it a bloodbath. Whatever.
Since I had time on my hands, I decided to finish the novel that I started. And on April 11, or somewhere thereabouts, I announced to the world that it was finished!
I was so naive.
Soon, I was back in the rat race. Gainfully employed, Michelle and I went back and forth over chapters. My husband met a woman who was starting her publishing company (again, I was so naive) and she asked to see the manuscript. She liked it – but it was too short.
I found out that most novels need to be between 80,000-100,000 words. Mine was like 75,000. I have nothing else, I whined. Michelle thought otherwise and gave me some ideas on fleshing out scenes that weren’t in the original manuscript.
So, back to the drawing board. Another year of writing, editing, and rewiriting and in May 2006, it was finally done.
During this time, I started learning more about the publishing industry – how to submit, who to submit to, agents, publishing imprints, etc. I learned that more often than not, first-time authors get soundly rejected by agents, publishers, imprints, etc. But I was determined. I had a list of publishers that I would submit to – unagented.
And then came BWRC 2006.
To be continued…
donnad69
