Releasing a new novel and facing the cat
Breaking news! The day is finally here. My new novel, Pucks’ Legacy, is out on 15 September and is available for pre order here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B.... (Insert excited whooping and jumping and generally unprofessional behavior). If you, like me, are an e reader for convenience and to save your back carrying multiple books around – but really your first love is the smell and feel of a real book with real pages, you will need to wait just a little bit longer for 15 September for the paperback to be released.
It’s a strange feeling when you finally let a new book loose on the world. I am always staggered by how long it takes, not to write it, but to get it to the standard I want after I have finished writing it. As a fervent hater of editing, I do as much as I possibly can up front to try to cut down the amount of pulling it apart and gluing it back together again at the end. It works to some extent but you never escape the editing really. Perhaps there are some authors out there who are so deeply talented the thing is ready for release as soon as they write the last words, and if so, I envy them intensely and will be messaging them shortly to ask they can bottle that talent and wing it my way.
I commented to a friend recently that the planning, plotting, and first drafting of a new book is magical because, at the beginning, the novel is still a fantasy. It’s a Schrodinger’s cat that might just be the next booker prize winning piece of literary genius. Once it’s written though, quite apart from the lingering bizarre sadness you get for leaving your characters behind (or killing them off I suppose, depending on how your story goes), you’ve got to edit it, which is essentially all about facing your own limitations. The cat is out of the box and you’ve got to force yourself to face all the mangy parts of it, and might even conclude it’s dead after all. I put off that phase as far as possible. But you’ve always got to face the cat in the end…
DISCLAIMER: I LOVE cats. I live with one and I adore her. If Schrodinger really put a cat in a box then I would be fully supportive of any cats out there who would like to put him in a box and see how he likes it.
Anyway, the cat has been faced. For what feels like (and probably is) years. It’s prowling about on an Amazon website/fence near you. I combed out all the mangy bits, I hope, but there are probably still some hiding in there. If you are kind enough to pre order and read it, I’d love a thoughtful review, the good and the bad. Let me know where those mangy patches were that I missed, and I’ll try to comb them out better, next time….
Katie.
It’s a strange feeling when you finally let a new book loose on the world. I am always staggered by how long it takes, not to write it, but to get it to the standard I want after I have finished writing it. As a fervent hater of editing, I do as much as I possibly can up front to try to cut down the amount of pulling it apart and gluing it back together again at the end. It works to some extent but you never escape the editing really. Perhaps there are some authors out there who are so deeply talented the thing is ready for release as soon as they write the last words, and if so, I envy them intensely and will be messaging them shortly to ask they can bottle that talent and wing it my way.
I commented to a friend recently that the planning, plotting, and first drafting of a new book is magical because, at the beginning, the novel is still a fantasy. It’s a Schrodinger’s cat that might just be the next booker prize winning piece of literary genius. Once it’s written though, quite apart from the lingering bizarre sadness you get for leaving your characters behind (or killing them off I suppose, depending on how your story goes), you’ve got to edit it, which is essentially all about facing your own limitations. The cat is out of the box and you’ve got to force yourself to face all the mangy parts of it, and might even conclude it’s dead after all. I put off that phase as far as possible. But you’ve always got to face the cat in the end…
DISCLAIMER: I LOVE cats. I live with one and I adore her. If Schrodinger really put a cat in a box then I would be fully supportive of any cats out there who would like to put him in a box and see how he likes it.
Anyway, the cat has been faced. For what feels like (and probably is) years. It’s prowling about on an Amazon website/fence near you. I combed out all the mangy bits, I hope, but there are probably still some hiding in there. If you are kind enough to pre order and read it, I’d love a thoughtful review, the good and the bad. Let me know where those mangy patches were that I missed, and I’ll try to comb them out better, next time….
Katie.
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