It's like tomorrow, I start writing.

I think I'm done writing for the season, except for my little Freedy jaunts, which I'm enjoying if no one else is.

I sort of solidified my plans yesterday.  Send the proposal off to agents for a few months.  Turns out writers' websites often list their agents, so that's the route I'll pursue.

Apparently, they don't even bother with rejections anymore.  They just don't answer ya.  So there's that.  Anyway, if I'm serious, I'll just have to put up with that.  On the other hand, there isn't anything against trying more than one agent at a time.

I've already figured out a couple of improvements for my proposal for the next time.  Keep refining the synopsis, and my biography. 

I need a bit of a break, I think.  I'll give the manuscript one last through going-through if anyone asks to see it.  Otherwise, the first three chapters are ready to go if they ask for that.  If they don't like the first three chapters, then that will be a pretty fair test.

I feel like I've gotten serious about the whole process.  I'm girding myself for rejection, which is part of the game.  Not going to get through this unscathed -- so best to realize that right now and prepare myself.

Weirdly, I heard the Beatles Decca audition tape the other day, and you know what?  I wouldn't have signed them up either!  All kinds of examples of that.  The right book and the right author have to find the right agent and the right publisher.  And that probably doesn't happen naturally.

I'm actually more comfortable with stranger to stranger transactions.  I'll get a good honest response.  I just can't see how putting it online I'll get the same measure of judging; it might be too harsh, or too generous.  Bottom line, the stranger is buying it because they think they can make money off it.  Can't get more honest than that.

I'm beginning to see this all as a pretty haphazard process.  The first two books out of the gate are already so different, and Freedy is very different from either of those.  So which are the stronger efforts?  I feel like Nearly Human probably has some structural problems that just can't be overcome.

The danger is that I subvert myself -- and not give an impartial outside party a chance to judge it.

I've been thinking a lot about The Reluctant Wizard and what I want to do there.  I've got a few scenes that I think will improve the story, and I may move things around a little --- I already have two versions, and while I like the version I have, the other version is probably structurally better.  (Brings the action and bad guys into the story earlier.)

Biggest thing I want to do is fully flesh out the backstory, and then infuse the story with elements of that.

So finish that book -- and then move on to the next.  At worst I have a pile of stories to dump on my new website (being built) and at best I get better and the right book hits the right agent/publisher.



So here's where I'm going to be honest.

I don't think I'm all that much better than I was when I quit 25 years ago.  Turns out, the skill needs honing.  Which is what I've been doing for the last year and a half.  But it wasn't until recently that I felt myself kind of slipping into my old level of consciousness.  I think I'm a little looser than before, and a little more patient.

What I have are slightly better work habits -- a bit of age -- and especially modern technology.  The modern technology is such that, if it had been around 25 years ago, I probably could have kept writing.

My natural talent is I think "good enough" with a whole lot of effort and further learning.  In other words,  I think I get about 50% of the way there on my first draft and through hard work I can get to 80% of the way there.

(So how do you get the rest of the way? A friend asked.  A magic pill, a moment of inspiration, Maxwell Perkins, I answered.)

That isn't putting myself down.  It puts me in striking distance.  After working pretty hard on writing for the last year and a half,  I can see a path forward.  I'm willing to pay the price.  I very well may not be there yet, but I can see how it isn't impossible for me to get there.

(The only really scary thing is how isolated I get.  Hours and hours in my room, days and days without leaving the house.)

The book itself is what the agents and editors are going to be looking at -- and it's very easy to get off on the wrong foot.  But how do you know?

You just have to keep writing, and try to apply what you learn to the next effort.  Too much worrying about whether it's good enough, or the 'right book' is just a recipe for blockage.

The point I'm making is, that instead of starting writing a year ago, I was really starting the process toward getting serious about writing again. 

So NOW I get serious.

It's like tomorrow, I start.