All together it took me about 7 years to edit my book into the form it is now in. At no point has the core story or plot changed but I have done much to to add depth to Si’ranna and its various denizens.
I split up several of the earlier, unweildy chapters to make them more streamlined and I also gave more to the backstory of Val’inar’s family. I also worked a lot to make the history of Si’ranna, always an important part of the story, more organic and realistic. Along the way I came to a point where I love and hate the work in equal measure, which I am given to understand is common for artistic works.
In reaching the end and publishing the book, I cannot express enough how important the support of my wife, Laney, has been. She has continually encouraged me and gotten a number of people to give me feedback.
I spent much of the last two years promising myself that if I just finished the edit I was on, which I always studiously avoided actually doing, that I would start sending out the work to publishers and literary agents. Finally, this year, my mother made my promise that as a 30th birthday present to myself I would self-publish my book on Amazon.
I missed the deadline, by 8 days, but I got it published and I am very proud that I got it done. I still have an edit to finish, I am going to comission a better cover, the formatting could use some work, and I found two typos in the first 5 minutes of having the book in my hand (a common occurrence also, I am told). However, I am looking forward to moving on to all the other stories rattling around my head, which hopefully won’t take 10 years this time, starting with a book I am about half finished with the rough draft of (written November 2011 as part of a National Novel Writing Month, I wanted to start something new), “And The Sun Burned Red”.
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