Failure.

Blog post No. 492

Snow from a Distant Sky is done. Barring any major screw-ups that have made their way trough all the drafts, beta reads, and reviews, all that’s left is waiting for the copies I’ve ordered to come in, bringing some to Biblioasis to sell, and distributing the ones out to the people who have requested to buy it from me. Since the book is officially release, I no longer have any excuse to not be editing the Invasion Novel.

The reason I titled this post as Failure is that I told myself (and you) that I was going to get a fast fourth draft done at the start of April and here we are, almost at the end of the month and I’m no where near done. I think I bit off more than I could chew and had to spit it out. I gave myself a goal of ten chapters a day, immediately felt overwhelmed, and fell off completely. By the time I realized and gave myself a more reasonable (or possibly too lenient) two chapters a day, I had to deal with the printing and last minute adjustments of Snow. So, here I am, only a fraction of the way through the novel and trying again.

Over the first few revisions of the Invasion Novel, I’ve managed to wrangle it down from well over 150 000, to about the same amount over 120 000 words. I’m at the point where I’m no longer cutting to get the word count down, I’m just cutting to make the story better. Since no one has read it yet, and I’ve been talking about it for years, I’m eager (and a little nervous) to get it in the hands of some beta readers. It’s been a big thing to get my head around and since I’ve been working on it for so long, I’m kind of already a little tired of it.

Getting bored with a story is nothing new. I’ve gotten to that point eventually with every book I’ve written. There’s a long way to go with the Invasion Novel, though, so I’m also a bit nervous that it will get tougher and tougher to force myself to give it a good edit from here on out. But also like every book so far, if I keep plodding my way forward and give it an honest effort, I’ll have something I’m proud of in the end.

Failing isn’t so bad, after all. It’s bound to happen sometimes. The more experience I gain with writing, the less often I make the same mistakes (instead I make new, bigger mistakes). I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. As long as you learn something from the failure, it was worth while. I’m not sure what my lesson to failure ratio is this time, but at least I’ve acknowledged it and now I’m moving on.

Don’t forget to order your copy of Snow from a Distant Sky from your favourite book store!