The final stretch?

Well I'm still hard at it, beavering away on my novel.  I'm still editing.  It's going well, but starting to get a little tedious now!  Some weeks ago now I printed out what I'd written to read through and make corrections.  I don't know about you, but I find it harder to take in what I'm reading when it's on the screen compared with a paper copy in your hand.  Also it was quite nice to see it in a physical form.

So I read through that, making corrections and a few changes, and now I'm about half way through reading on the computer again.  I'm not sure how most writers go about their editing.  It would be interesting to me to know if there are certain things that writers do/don't do or try to avoid when editing.  I'm just trying to go through it as much as I can - though saying that I'll probably stop when I've done this read through and then print out another copy/copies to give to (kind) friends who wouldn't mind reading it for me!!

After I've done that and taken on board what people have said about my story, then I guess the time will come for me to seriously start looking to self publish on Kindle and possibly Smashwords as well.  I do need to do some research before then, but I have a secret weapon (ie my husband!!) who is very knowledgeable when it comes to computers and has even said he can design my cover for me! 

This is quite an exciting time for me as I've never been published before.  I realise that technically I'm self publishing, but as many people on Twitter tell me, it may well be the way things are going in the future.  It seems obvious to me that more and more people are going to self publish.  It's so much easier to get your work noticed and as I think I've mentioned before on this blog, if you self publish and lots of people look at your work, it has the potential to lead to publishers getting interested and taking a look as well.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.  As always, please send me your comments.  I'd love to know what you think about the writing process.

It's coming together!!

Just done my first print out of my novel.  I know it's only A4 paper but it still feels great to see it printed out.  I feel a real sense of achievement.  I do have some insecurities about my novel - who doesn't? - the main one being that it's not long enough for an adult novel - less than 50,000 words.

But I reckon I can maybe expand it if need be and I think that for me personally it's better to get it finished, to get all my ideas down and then maybe see about tweaking it further at some point in the future.  What do you guys think?  Maybe you could let me know...

In the meantime, I've had an idea for my next novel which I can start planning soon.  Watch this space!