In my About section I noted that I am writing novels and longer works of prose and fiction. I’m now progressing on that journey. Baby steps at first 🙂  I wrote a few novels more than a decade ago, and having done this and having received some helpful critique from manuscript assessment professionals I then let them gather dust because in those days online publishing was not a viable option and I loved writing rather than holding any great ambitions to be published or ‘known’ for writing (if that makes sense?). I mean by this I had no interest in the general marketing of the books to publishers, so I didn’t try…the writing was the thing!!
Then I kind of went back to sleep creatively, concentrated on my daily work, and many years past. And in those years, online publishing started to come into its own, and with its birth comes the possibility of publishing when you are happy with a work, and then people will either read or not, as they choose. A more direct form of creativity and sharing that isn’t quite so much about sales figures, genres and so forth.
Now that such publishing is available, I’ve been working on updating the novels (funny how much has changed in our world over the past decade or so, particularly with technology, which can render general descriptions in works of fiction out of date so rapidly…). The first of the novels I’ve worked on has now had the efficient and kind attention of a professional editor, and I will start to traverse the world of getting a cover designed, formatting done and so forth.
This is new, exciting, and rather frightening all at once. I know many readers of this blog and/or other blogs I read are taking this journey too and I’d love any hints or thoughts about what to do, or perhaps more importantly what not to do.
I’d also appreciate your thoughts on whether, as it gets closer to publishing time (which probably isn’t for a few months yet given what is left to be done), you might like to see an excerpt or two, to see if you might be interested in reading the novel? I ask because most of what I write on here is poetry, and I really appreciate the support of everyone who reads and comments, but a novel is a different form, so I am just touching base to see if doing some excerpts would be welcome on this blog.
The first novel’s story is very poetic in its theme, in any case, about artists and writers, relationships, mythology in life and why we make decisions the way we do. So it is, probably not surprisingly, very similar in theme to a lot of my poetry.
Any feedback, suggestions or thoughts would be welcome…it’s an adventure and I’m not an experienced traveller on this path, so I’m relying on the kindness of others more travelled than I. 🙂
helenvalentina 