Click here to read Part 5.
It would seem that I have, essentially, caught up to the present with these posts. So now instead of explaining what I have been doing or thinking I will be writing down what I am doing or thinking.
My book is done. I've worked on content and language and length, and I've gone through to edit for grammar and typos. (It wouldn't hurt to go through once more, though, I suppose.) I have begun the process of self-publishing, and I've learned that much of this process is simply reading about how things are supposed to be done. There is so much that I didn't know about getting a book published.
I've found that not everyone I talk to even knows what an ISBN is (I did); I had to not only know what they are but also go and buy one (well, a few, actually). And then I was reading about copyrights, too; I never knew that you have to pay to register a copyright (your work automatically belongs to you, but registering your copyright is basically for legal records in case any issues every come up).
Then there is the proper formatting of your book. The cover. The back cover. Pictures (I still haven't had anyone take my author photo--I'm considering taking it myself but I suppose I'm a terrible photographer and really shouldn't). I need to get some nice business cards, too.
Oh, yes, and then there is the odd task of writing my book summary. Don't ask me why this is so incredibly difficult for me: it's my book, so it should be easy. But whenever I try and put something together, it's like trying to jam a nail through one of my fingers in the dark (as in, it hurts to do and yet you also can't quite figure out how to do it because you can't see). I've written some different versions and I'm trying to see what's best so that I can edit that one. I should have been done with this part a long time ago--but I just can't see to do it.
So that's one side of what I've been doing.
The other is beginning my next book. I didn't exactly plan to start working on something else. It just sort of happened. Maybe a few months after I'd basically finished the first book, I had an image in my head for the next one. So I wrote that down. And I add to it from time to time. And I think about that story quite a bit, even though I haven't written anything else for it in a little while.
I want this book to be a little different. In some ways, it'll be more linear. I thought it would be less abstract, but now I'm thinking to possibly incorporate magical realism into it. I like the idea of magical realism and I've been wondering why that isn't part of the genre that I write in--so I'm going to try it. Just a sprinkle of it, possibly a sprinkle that'll get bigger as the book moves on. I don't know yet: I still don't know where this story goes or how it ends. But it's kind of fun to be back at the beginning again--and this time I feel more in control of what I can do with this book.
The end and the beginning, the publishing and the drafting, both at once.