The Time Has Come

As I type this, my printer is buzzing away churning out page after page of my draft. Between the buzzes I hear small sighs of relief as I’ve finally given my printer something to do. It’s been working overtime since Friday night, but that’s okay. It’s for a good reason. 

I feel pretty good about the state of my novel, and the time has come to open the door to a select few readers. I knew this day was coming, and I also knew that it would be an expensive day. I’ve spent too much time calculating the cost of printing copies at a copy center versus doing it at home. I finally settled on just printing at home because, believe it or not, it’s cheaper than having it done at a copy center. That shocked me, too!

The downside, I have to sit at home because it takes about an hour to print one copy. I have to be nearby in case my printer yells out to me, “Out of paper!” (my paper tray holds less than 100 sheets) Suffice it to say, I’ve gotten a lot of small projects done this weekend since I’ve been homebound and not clicking away on my keyboard.

Anxiety and Excitement

My body bounces back and forth between feeling anxious and excited about finally having people read my work. This is a huge project for me. Clearly it’s also important to me, and I think I have something of worth otherwise I’d just keep it to myself. 

I have a good mix of first readers for my novel. I have two male readers, three YAs, and two adult females. I gave away a copy to my first reader yesterday and it felt very strange. That ping pong match between anxiety and excitement was very much alive at first and then excitement took over–I’m really doing this!

Trees and Forests

I’ve spent the last few months looing so closely at the trees, every detail, that it’s time to really step back and look at the forest. I got some time to do that when I picked up my manuscript, cleaned off two years worth of dust, and then reread it. Since then I’ve been hunched over looking at pine needles. It’s been difficult to step back and look at the big picture no matter how hard I try. 

Are there gaps in the story? Did I somehow inadvertently drop a character? Do events line up? Some pieces were intentionally left ambiguous because the story isn’t over.

I’m looking forward to hearing the feedback.

What now?

Now I want to work on some short story writing. I want to focus my mind on something completely different and much shorter. I have some stories that I started over the past few months that got dropped because of the novel. I’ve also had ideas pop into my head, and I want to give them some attention. The first story I’m going to revisit involves cockroaches … lots and lots of cockroaches. 

Buzz!

My printer is out of paper …