words and witchery

This week I finished the zero draft of The Blood Witch!  It is currently in the hands of my first beta reader. No matter how many times I finish writing a book, it always comes with a thrill of accomplishment.

This book was born two years ago while at Sirens.  The main character, Thána Alizon, came to me fully whole.  I knew who she was, what her backstory was, and where the story would take her.  I wasn’t sure how we were going to get there, but that’s what the writing process is all about, getting from here to there.

Thána took a back seat for a while as I worked on another project, which got shelved last November when I decided to make The Blood Witch my nanowrimo project, just to see if I could get it up on its feet.

NANO was a success, pushing The Blood Witch to within spitting distance of the final climax and resolution.  December, however, when I wanted to be writing, there were a bazillion obligations and stresses that kept me from writing.  The same for January.  I guess the blessing in not working right now was that it afforded me the time to finish.  I wrote the last ten thousand words over the course of about two days.

Of course, writing a book is only the beginning.  The hard work comes after the last word is on the page.  There’s beta readers/critique partners who are the first to see the raw manuscript, a first edit pass, a second edit pass, then comes submission time, and this time around I plan on querying agents to try a more traditional publishing path, which I’ve never done, so I have no idea how long that will take.

Once the agent sells the book to a publisher, there’s another round or two of edits, cover design, etc.  It can take a year to go from purchased manuscript to a book out in the wilds.  The road is long, and the pay isn’t great, if you get paid at all, unless you manage to hit it big.

But, the satisfaction in finishing that zero draft is still there, even if it never sells.

Happy Thursday, Readers.  I’m out of coffee, so I guess that means it’s time to get some stuff done on the job hunting front.