Moving Pictures - Refocusing on the craft

I think of myself faced with an interesting dilemma. I completed the first draft of the current novel as far back as October. I did not submit it to agents at that time preferring to have a full review on which I could base my editing process. That took nearly two months putting me into the first part of January. From there I went into full edit mode which I completed about a week ago.

I have since submitted to a couple of agents with the requisite form letter of rejection. I am neither bitter nor heartbroken over the responses. But it occurred to me that I put a ton of energy into researching the agents and then crafting a query that makes it clear I am not mass marketing my queries. I could do it that way, but that is not my style.

So as I received the second response yesterday, I would like to say I thought long and hard, prayed, consulted mystics, shamans and wise men from every faith – but the truth is, I did none of those things. I considered briefly how much energy I want to expend on an agent search when what I really want to do is write. I want to write more. I want to come up with new stories, different stories. I want to create new characters. I have so many concepts in my mind and I keep putting off new work while I focus on marketing – both to agents and individuals.

So, with only the least amount of possible consideration, I came to the conclusion yesterday that I am going to put Grand Illusion on the market via the requisite self-published route. I have a good cover design and so now I am just working on the interior. The words themselves look good, paragraphs properly formatted, etc. All that is left are a title page and my acknowledgements page.

This will free my mind from methods to market the book and get me back into my creative flow much quicker. I may or may not send some queries out in the future, but this project will be live soon. I am excited and hope to get working on a couple of new projects very soon.

The first will be a return to my collection of stories called “All American: Stories of Love, Hope and Football’ Simultaneously, I will hopefully be able to get some work done on the “Moments in Time” project. I have already put down about 35 chapter titles. The draw will be easy, my memory. It will be more of a ruminating memoir. You know, twisted thoughts of a failed writer type of thing.

I am excited to get back to writing and stop worrying about the last book!