On Tuesday I typed THE END on the draft of my first novel. It felt strange, like I had been cut loose in space to float. Writing a novel was a lot of work and took longer than I would have imagined. It was frustrating at times and a joy at others. Twice I went back and replotted the whole thing. But the draft was never really scary. What issues my critique group or I uncovered could be fixed or just marked for attention in the second draft. No pressure.
But now there's pressure. What comes out of my next round of editing will hopefully be read by agents or editors. This novel will most likely transform from a creative passion to a source of rejection. I'll be lucky if agents even read it, and if they do read it, I'll be lucky if they bother to explain why they don't like it. I'll polish it as well as I can. I'll take to heart the wisdom of my target agent, Donald Maass. And I'll try to write a query that could survive nearly a full round on Query Shark. But first I just need to do one little thing…
Write the first draft of my second novel.
