The first edit of SSN, printed out.

So you wrote a draft. An entire book! Good for you! You’re officially a more accomplished writer than 95% of the people who attempt to write a book. But… now what?

Now is the time to send it out into the world. Not to agents and editors and contests, but to other writers and trusted friends and family. You send it out with the hope that they’ll be able to show you some of the plot holes you never noticed, catch the character discrepancies you accidentally threw in there, and help make this book ready to face the gauntlet of the publication process.

That’s where I am right now.

Last night I finished my last-check read-through of TDWS Book 2 and sent the file off to a few people, most of whom haven’t read book 1. That may seem like a strange thing to do, but one thing I want to check is, can you understand what’s happening in book 2 without reading the first one? If you happened to pick this book up first, would everything make sense?

Now that the book is out in the world, I have to wait. And hope. Hope the people I sent it to love it, hope I didn’t miss anything that would cause the entire plot to collapse, and hope all my kind volunteers have the time to read it before I need notes back at the end of the month. But that’s a lot of what publishing is. Waiting. I’ve never been the most patient person, but I’m getting better at playing this game as time goes on. It helps that I’m also really good at keeping myself busier than I need to be. While my wonderful agent and my beautiful volunteers read book 2, I will be immersing myself in a different world and trying as hard as I can to finish this fantasy project of mine.

*takes a deep breath and disappears*