So the novel is done and is already being read. No doubt a mother-load of edits and revisions will come back from this. But in the meantime, what do I do?

I mean, I could start on Book 2, but then the feedback could be that what I’ve written isn’t (for whatever reason) a publishable novel. Maybe Book 1 will need some heavy duty re-jigging of the story of characters which will affect Book 2. But if I start a different project and it comes back that Book 1 has the potential to be a publishable book, that project is going to be dropped for so long that by the time I pick it up again, I’ll have grown as a writer and want to approach it in a different way.

I feel I should be doing some writing!

It’s done!

There’s so much going on in my personal life right now they could probably take up three separate blogs of their own. Needless to say the last few bits of editing have been next to impossible due to general real-life crap.

So for now, all I really have the energy to do is say that the edits are done… for now! Next, more people get to read it and give me feedback on how to fine-tune it.

I realise it’s been a while since my last update. In truth it probably feels longer than it actually is. Life has been incredibly hectic. A minor accident at work (which I’m still not fully recovered from) was followed by some unexpected unpleasantness upon my return. If that was not enough there’s been the diagnosis that the reason I’m a fatty isn’t because I eat too much. Finally! There’s a part of me that thought I’d welcome that news, but when it means I’m probably going to be on a 1000 calorie, minimal fat diet for the rest of my life, it dampens my spirits slightly. At least alcohol has no fat!

In just a couple of weeks, I’ve gone from a person with no drugs to drugs for my neck, drugs for my weight and I suspect there will be more medication prescribed before the week is out.

I’m muddling through in some form of haze. I think it’s just all too much to contemplate right now. And there’s so much to do that the evening seem to fly by.

But amongst all this is a glimmer of hope. I spent the evening on the phone to one of my alpha readers getting his impressions of the book (OK, so I interrogated him to see what he liked and didn’t like) and it was only after I put the phone down that I thought “fuck! Someone has actually read the novel I’ve been going on about for years”. It’s not just this invented thing in my head I’ve been trying to commit to paper but something someone else has actually read.

That feels like a significant milestone to me, but one that’s lost in all the shit going on at the moment. Still I’ve always said that my writing works best when it’s something else I do.

I’ve still got some corrections to make but the alpha read really didn’t contain any nasty surprises so it shouldn’t be too long before it progresses to beta.

At least something in my life seems to be moving in the right direction!