What Now?


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Vision 70

 

What Now?

By

Connie Cockrell

Copyright © 2013, Connie Cockrell, All Rights Reserved

 

 

What the heck! I just wrote over 60,000 words! Yeah, it was a challenge from my daughter but still. I’ve written over 60,000 words! Now what?

 

I started this adventure as a wanna be. Oh yeah, I’d had pretensions of writing from an early age. But now, here I am with 60,000 words. I have no idea what to do next!

 

Fortunately, the daughter who dragged me into this mess had some links. Of course she did, she’s under 40! So I check them out. Some are asking for money, some for just a minute of your time. I can tell a scam when I see it. But, there it is: A glimmer, a site that doesn’t look like a slick ad. I found it, a way to figure out what to do next. This was the Forward Motion site, recommended by my NaNoWriMo Municiple Liaison. Through them, I found a lesson.

 

It was recommended that I check out the Holly Lisle course, How To Revise Your Novel. Yeah, it cost a little. However, it promised I’d learn how to revise my novel. I was dubious. Not about the course, but about how someone could change my obvious dreck into a real novel. Without looking at it! Not even in person! There are a lot of ways to go about revising your novel. But, since I didn’t know any of them, I thought I’d give this lesson a shot. It may even help me write a novel that doesn’t need so much revision.

 

I signed up for it, a lesson a week for 22 weeks. Some weeks, (a very few weeks) I could breeze on through the lesson. Most weeks, I struggled to work my way through it. Some weeks it took me two weeks to do the lesson. One lesson took me 6 weeks.

 

At the end, I had a revised novel. Here’s the best part. One of the prizes for finishing that NaNo novel in November was an offer by CreateSpace to turn your manuscript into a paperback book and send you free copies. Really, a paperback book! That was a prize I could get my mind around.

 

After I finished the course, I got the print copies and kept one and sent the rest out to family members. I did not release it for sale. It was just too scary for me to do. But I let a few people read the book and they liked it. They were passing it around to other people. Well, it must be OK right? So I pulled out my electronic file and I went through it; several more times. Then, taking my heart in my hands; re-submitted the manuscript and released it for sale. It’s now up on Amazon.com as a paperback and a Kindle file (The Bad Seed). I’ve actually sold a few copies.

 

I learned so much about writing by learning about revising. I’m already a better writer for it. And oh yeah, I’m sticking with it, I won the August 2012 Camp NaNo writing another draft novel, this one a modern fiction, maybe even women’s fiction. And of course, I joined the November NaNoWriMo as well, winning that one too with a Science Fiction offering.

 

It all needs to be edited of course, but now I have the tools to do that. Look into what will work best for you. Read a book; take a college class; sign up for an on-line course, you’ll be glad you did!

 

 

The Bad Seed, by Connie Cockrell, Create Space, ISBN 13: 978-1478119272 (ISBN 10: 1478119276)