Holding my breath

I spent the majority of Saturday printing out the sequel to The Silver Spoon and praying. Sounds like I'm being flippant, but I'm not. There is nothing more terrifying than knowing you've done all you can do, you've given all that you have within you to make a good story, and then confronting the final product. Will it suck or not suck? Will all your blood, sweat, tears and countless hours mean something? Or will it be four hundred pages of loosely connected scenes that make no sense?

The good news is that, in my very humble opinion, it does not suck. And let me tell you before somebody blasts me for false modesty, I was truly and utterly scared that it would. Mainly because I didn't know how to make it better--all I knew was that I'd given it all I had. I'm still scared that I won't be able to make the fixes required (and there are a few) in a manner that won't stand out as an obvious "fix." I'm also terrified that I might be the only one who finds it to be an enjoyable story, but that is another obstacle to be conquered at another time.

This not-sucking business is not to say that you'll love the book if you read it. I hope you will. Both read it and love it. *grin* But right now, my satisfaction with it is based more on the technical side of things, I guess. The story accomplishes what it was supposed to accomplish. The pieces fit together and it's, for lack of a better term, solidly constructed. It makes sense from beginning to end. At least, that's what I think. My final opinion, of course, cannot be rendered until I hear what everyone else thinks about it! What makes sense to me might very well be mass confusion for everyone else. But I hope not.

Right now, I'm in the process of writing up my master list of all the problems to be fixed. Some of them are more decisions than problems, I guess, but all of them have an impact on the story. I'm more than halfway through with putting together the list. As I kind of expected, the list is much more extensive for the beginning chapters and the end chapters. I still tend to flail in the beginning and at the end, I'm in such a rush that I miss certain obvious things.

Then I've actually got to sit down and start making the changes. Ick. Hate that part too. I can never tell if I'm making a problem better or worse, which is why my first readers always get a list of annoying questions from me. Did you notice this? Did you have questions about that? I'm lucky they put up with me. It's one thing to read a book, it's quite another to hand-hold the author through recommended changes. *grin*

My goal is to have the manuscript to RuneStone by December 1. That doesn't give me, or the poor first readers, very much time, so I'll have to hurry along as fast as I can. Hopefully that will keep from agonizing too much over the fixes. I'd very much like to have the sequel--have to think of a name for it--published in time for RT in May, assuming that RuneStone likes and accepts it, but we'll see.

I hope this entry doesn't seem arrogant or boasting or anything. I'm just so excited and relieved that it turned out to be all right. That--God willing--it won't involve another complete draft from scratch. And I'm writing this for myself too so that when I'm at this stage again with another book, I'll remember that the long hours, blood, sweat and tears can be worth it.