Everything gets easier after that initial cut. It may prove difficult to keep the line straight, but at least you have a line. Seemingly-infinite possibilities have narrowed to what’s right in front of your blade. All you have to do is continue what you started.
Hopefully this is an apt metaphor for the process of getting a book published. I wouldn’t know, having never done it, but at least I’ve gotten started. I’m making the incision.
Work is progressing rapidly. Last year I had no idea when my writing would culminate; then I reached the moment for which I’d striven for over a decade, and a great hush fell. Six months ago I didn’t know what literary agents even did; now I’m accumulating their rejection letters. A week ago I didn’t know what a one-sheet was; today I possess one that blows away the clip-artsy examples I found online.
Oh yeah—and I have a website. With a blog.
What does this all mean? I haven’t the foggiest. Maybe my novel won’t catch on. Maybe my target audience won’t emerge from the woodwork. Maybe I’ll have to just keep doing all the work and publish the series myself.
Only time will tell. But at least my blade’s drawn blood.
Arlam Online 