Planning Ahead

I realize now why it took so long to write my three novels; I was still working full-time. My sum total of writing days per week was two. Unfortunately, that's the situation I'm in now through no fault of my own. There are a lot of good things about having no work responsibilities, but it's not all roses and rainbows, either. I'm still a slave to someone else's imposed schedule, so even though I am itching to write, it's not in the cards. Sure, I could pen a paragraph here and there, but that's not how I do it. I need a block of time; uninterrupted time.

Thus, I tend to think about my novel a lot; not about the plot, generally, but about how I'll handle the publishing of it. I've come to a couple of conclusions.

1. I'm going to retitle it. Obviously, I unpublished Second Chance once I made the decision to revise it, but I could easily upload the new manuscript and republish. Although its current title could still work, Second Chance was a play on words, since the fictional town the main character landed in is called Chance, and moving there was her new beginning. With the direction the story is heading in now, however, Chance (the town) really only plays a role in Part 1. Retitling it is dependent on finding a better title, though.

2. Since Part 1 will require extensive editing, I've decided the best way to do it will be to copy and paste one paragraph at a time into a new document and work from there. The primary issue with Part 1 is that it's the dreaded "too rushed", but trying to edit it while viewing the entire manuscript would be too intimidating. I'd find myself adding parts that conflict with previously written parts, and end up with a jumbled mess. Or I may want to shuffle some scenes around, and the utter confusion that would result would be defeating. If I want this novel to be good, and I do, I have to do it right.

3. Now that I think about my cover redesign, I don't know how much I love it. I was only able to find one image that really works, but it's such that it requires the title to be crammed into too tight of a space, and the overall look is unsatisfying and possibly amateurish.  

4. I still won't market the book, which I know is a Catch-22. Maybe "marketing" isn't the term I'm looking for ~ I won't send out ARCs. Overall with Inn Dreams I received more good reviews from ARCs than bad, but bad reviews tend to stand out, and this novel means too much to me to have it ruined by negativity. Potentially, if I can come up with a great blurb, I might select a couple of places to advertise, but since none of the sites I used in the past did much for me, I'll need to consider that carefully.

5. I won't tag the novel as women's fiction. I hate that category anyway, since at least half of all readers equate women's fiction with romance. This is hardly a romance. I'll probably go with contemporary fiction and let the blurb and keywords point it toward potential buyers.

 

I still have a very long way to go before I can put any of these things into practice, but writing them down doesn't hurt. When I was working, my brain could juggle fifty things at once, but it's slowing down and it rebels at being asked to retain too many chunks of data. 

I do know that I'm very serious about this book. It's not a quick dash-off, like a few of my novellas were (although quickly dashing one off isn't all bad). But I've turned over a new leaf and I want to write something stellar at least once.

Now, if only I could be unchained to write...