One thing I’m often asked by friends and family is, ‘how’s the book coming?’ It’s great that so many take interest, and fortunately for me, the interest is always positive and not the ‘how’s the book coming?’ which really means ‘why aren’t you published yet?’ The first time dh asked me why I wasn’t finished with the book yet, I asked him if he’d ever written an 80,000 word book. *g*
The thing is, writing is a process. It’s not always easy to plot out a book and write it in a week, as some expect. In fact, I’ve never written a book in a week, although I do know of a few authors out there who can. It’s part of their writing process. The quickest I’ve ever plotted out a book was a day, the quickest I’ve ever written a book was 55 days. But that’s only part of the process. There’s the research, endless revision and fervent prayers.
For a new author your story needs to be near perfect. It needs to be close to publish ready as possible. It’s a huge risk to take a chance on a new author and they want to know you’ve got what it takes. Sometimes that means endless revisions. I’ve been working on my Western since Spring 2009 and I just finished up round 10 of revisions. I’m sure there will be at least one more round before I submit it again to agents and editors.
Since I haven’t made it beyond the acceptance process yet, I can’t tell you the rest of the process, but once I do, you’ll be the first to know.