So I think I just finished editing Echoes…

It’s been more than a month since I last posted on Twitter with #200WordsADay, more than a month since I wrote 200 words of anything new, almost a month since I last posted here moaning about how much I hated editing.

Since then I’ve been editing and editing and editing and editing (as well as getting all the other stuff I need to do done, fitting in the editing around work and family and everything else I need to do) and I’ve not been enjoying it any more, but I have been getting it done. I’ve run it through ProWritingAid, I’ve considered the very constrictive beta-reader feedback I’ve received, and then I’ve stuck on my noise cancelling headphones and got Scrivener to read it to me in a robot voice, which has been the most tedious part, but also helped catch a bunch of things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And after all that, I still think it’s a pretty good book. Which I’m delighted, if not a little surprised by!

I think I now have a complete, query-able manuscript, which is quite something to be able to say. It’s happened to me twice before, once over twenty years ago which went nowhere and is now lost to the mists of time, and once five years ago when I finished The Man in the Moon. I often wonder if I gave up querying TMITM too soon, if I’d just persisted a little longer whether I’d have got it published through a traditional route, but I stopped when I stopped and put it on Amazon for the world to enjoy. I neglected to market it in any way, though, so the world has mostly ignored it. I don’t actually want to be a children’s author, though, so maybe things worked out the way they were meant to work out?

Anyway, Echoes is ready to send out. I just need to write a synopsis, and some query letters. I’ve been speed-reading some potential comps (comparative titles, to give a potential agent an idea of where it would fit into the market). I’ll do some reviews of my favourites, but I’m saving those for future posts. All of that prep will probably take up next week, and then it’s Easter, but I’ll aim to send out my first query just after the Bank Holiday.

It’s exciting. And a little scary. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, even during all the periods when I consistently failed to write anything.

What if this is it?