Following through.

I've started to get back some feedback on my book -- or even more disappointing, NOT getting feedback on my book. It's pretty lukewarm, at best. Which on reflection, shouldn't surprise me.

Sure, it's a little disappointing, but when I look back on my history of writing, I can put it all in perspective.

I spent 5 years writing my first book. Flailing around, starting over, restarting, going in wrong directions, getting the wrong tone, underwriting, overwriting. For most of those drafts, the book was probably unreadable -- and it probably was only the last draft that actually had all it needed to get published. And even there, it probably was luck and happenstance that it found someone willing to buy it. (That last, by the way, I think is probably true of most books.)

I kept writing despite all the doubt, despite the less than positive feedback.

The second and third books were really one book, in two parts. I wrote that on the satisfaction glow of finishing the first book, getting some positive feedback from friends and family (even if it was just surprise that I actually produced something they could read.) Then the euphoria of getting the first book published. All that gave me momentum.

I tried to reproduce that success with the next two books, but it just wasn't possible in the time I gave myself. I rushed them, and in the end, I don't think I really even produced a satisfactory first draft.

The sixth book was much like my first book. I rewrote it over and over again, getting feedback from my agent and publishers, but unlike Star Axe, in the end, it never quite made it over the hump. It came very, very close. I'm don't think I'm kidding myself about that, but eventually, I quit sending it off.

The seventh book was written purely for pleasure, and rereading it so many years later, I can see that it was really more or less a first draft.

The conclusion is -- that it takes me at least a couple of years or more to get a manuscript into readable form, if I'm doing it full time. Probably a few years if I'm not. I convince myself every step of the way that I'm almost done, and every step of the way I find that I have another step to go. At some point, with Star Axe and Snow/Ice, I knew it was ready. At some point with Deviltree, I knew I had done everything I could for the moment. And it took not months, but years to get there.

So in that sense, I've really only written 3 books. Star Axe, Snowcastles/Icetowers, and Deviltree. Everything else was somewhere in the muddled middle and never really finished.

So where am I on I'm Only Human? I suspect I'm only halfway thru the process, though I'd like to believe that all I need is one more good draft. I think if I'm not satisfied totally with the next draft, I'll just start on the second book and then come back to it. It's not going to be very good until it gets to the point of being good and the only person who can get it there is myself. I think I may have misled people into thinking it was easy, because I tend to mislead myself into thinking it's easy.

You know what? I'm really glad it happened. I'm really glad that I tried to write another book, no matter what happens. I'm going to keep writing, I think, at least for the foreseeable future, no matter who else cares.

I've decided to do this on my own. Not ask for any more help. Not ask anyone else to put it online for me. It's my job to do, and no one elses. I'd forgotten that it's a one man job. From now on, I'm going to work on it myself, without feedback.

But I will finish it, and I will put it online somewhere. That I have control over, and that much I'll follow through on.