So you decide you’re going to self-publish your novel….but turns out, it’s not that simple.

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, after setting aside my novel for a number of years, I decided to jump back into writing – as much as my work schedule will allow, that is – and move forward with self-publishing. I’ve read up on the various ways to do this and felt confident that after taking time to review and do a quick edit and polish, I’d be ready to move forward.

Welp. This turned out to be a great but flawed plan.

As I may have mentioned, when I first finished my novel and had received positive feedback from a number of credible sources, I spent a good year trying to shop it around – getting close but just never managing to seal the deal. Frustrated, I signed up for another UCLA Writer’s Program class designed specifically for writers who had completed a novel but had yet to find an agent or traditional publisher. The idea of the class was to identify issues and obstacles and hopefully, come out of it with a revised version – or the start of a revision – and a clear path for taking that next step.

While I enjoyed the class, I found myself with more questions than answers at the end. I also found myself with a sudden and complete lack of desire to work on my novel further. This is the point at which I set it aside, tucked it away in a (virtual) drawer and decided that, perhaps, this novel just wasn’t meant to be.

When I picked up the novel again a few months ago, I decided that the right approach would be to go back to my original – which many people at the time had considered “finished” and “ready” to put out there – and simply polish it. 

Unfortunately, upon review, I realized that the revision I’d started in my last class was, in many ways, better. There were suggestions I hadn’t implemented that suddenly made sense to me, and I could see that the entire thing needed much more than just a simple copy edit.

So here I am again, at a bit of a crossroads. I have already embarked upon some rewrites but the process is slow-going, particularly with a work schedule that has become increasingly busy. I am thinking about it, though. Every. Day. The ideas for the rewrite are there, I’ve made a list of what I need to do. Now I just need to find the time and energy to do it. I must admit, this is when retirement sounds like a very nice idea.

I am determined to get there. But it is going to take more time. I’ve also been told that it would be very worthwhile to hire a professional editor to prep my final manuscript. Or at the very least, enlist the help of ChatGPT?

Any writers out there who have suggestions, I’d certainly welcome them! In the meantime, I will plug away…just more slowly than I’d originally hoped.