Part 6

So, here we are at last; the final blog post about the development of book 1 (until after it is released and I feel more comfortable writing about specific aspects of it). I know that I said the same thing last week, or at least something along those lines, but this time I’m pretty certain of it. However, even if I end up deciding there is more of this story to tell next week, I’m not going to come back to this post and change the introduction.

Anyway, last week I left off with the fifth draft so let’s start there. After I completed the fourth draft I took an extended break from book 1, like over a year. During that time I started working on other things and got back into reading in a voracious manner. Even though there was not much going on in my personal life at the time, even less so regarding anything positive, I still look back on that time rather fondly due to rediscovering how much I enjoyed reading. What I read was almost exclusively fantasy, and I read stuff from every era, and I’ll write a blog post about my thoughts about how the genre has changed over the years some other time. For now, or then, or whenever, I was reading again, and it was an overall beneficial experience.

Back to book 1. After at least a year of not looking at the manuscript at all, I returned to give it a once over after a particular discussion with my older sister about a feature that everyone who looked at my work till that point had a problem with: head-hopping. See, when I was thinking about how to structure my novel, I came to the conclusion that the point of view character (POV) at any given time should be the most important character in any given scene. So, as many of you have probably already recognized, I had upwards of like four or five POVs in each chapter and the fact that I thought that I was being clever by doing that pains me to this day.

My sister said the same things everyone else said about head-hopping, and after having spent a year reengaging with reading and exploring new works (to me at least), I wanted to see if it was as big of an issue as everyone was leading me to believe it was. So, I opened the manuscript, read the first page, and wanted to quit out of despair. They were not only right, the litany of issues that came with the problem, like how I formatted each chapter etc., were so vast and apparent I genuinely questioned how I never came to the uber obvious realization that writing my novel in the way I had was trash.

There was a time after that where I went through a particularly notable bout of Imposter’s Syndrome, which was heightened by the delusions of grandeur comment the teacher made over ten years ago at that point. I had invested years of time and effort into writing everything that led up to the first four drafts (read the previous blog posts if you want to know more) and I was still so unfathomably far away from writing something passable, let alone worthy of print. It was a hard pill to swallow, and there were more than a few times where I considered deleting everything and living a pointlessly mundane existence that most of society seems okay with living. However, for reasons I can’t really explain, whatever this root feeling I have regarding the creation of this project is remained as stalwart and impregnable against my negativity as it ever was and I eventually got to work on the fifth draft.

Writing this draft was the first time I felt exhausted at the prospect of writing because I knew what was waiting for me. As I mentioned previously, my main focus with the fifth draft was the head-hopping, and boiling each chapter down to a single POV. At first I was hopeful that the changes would be minor and easy to fix, but after a quick count of each POV in each chapter, that hope died a slow, cruel death. What started as an idea for some edits here and there turned into a complete rewrite of the entire novel from start to finish. Some chapters were rather simple, all things considered, while others felt impossible to handle at times. The biggest obstacle I encountered was that there were more than a few chapters that had sections from multiple POVs that all held important insight, development and all of that. This left me feeling like no matter what I did, I was going to have to dilute the story of crucial narrative, but regardless, I set my mind to the task, and got to work.

I took another extended break from book 1 after I finally finished the fifth draft. Every chapter finally read and felt like an actual novel, and there wasn’t much more I felt I could do with it on my own. So, I stopped interacting with it while I tried my hand at landing a literary agent. That whole process didn’t go well for a variety of reasons like me not knowing what I was doing, and the cognitive dissonance I felt about engaging in the aspects of being an author that go beyond the scope of simply writing what I wanted to write.

Those letters I wrote during that time didn’t go anywhere. The me from before I wrote the fifth draft held onto a lot of ego-based biases about my work, but post fifth draft me wants to understand what I’m missing in relation to any given subject, so with that being what it is, I decided to try and hire an editor. I will save my thoughts on that process (which ended up being overwhelmingly positive) for its own post, but for now I will say that my desire to find an editor led me to the sixth draft, which was essentially just me being my own editor before sending it off to a professional. I remember I was really curious about the idea of if I was still missing something, like I was during the whole head-hopping nonsense.

So, after a month or so of diligent, egoless focus on my work, I completed what I felt to be a manuscript that was at the peak of my writing ability at the time. After yet another reread just to make super-extra sure that there was nothing more that I could do with it, I hired an editor and sent it to them.

A while later they delivered the edited document on the agreed upon day, and man, I felt like an amateur all over again. However, this time, in a positive way. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to reference copyrighted material in blog posts like these, but until I find out one way or the other, I’m going to explain this next bit in the way that feels the most relatable. When I read through everything the editor sent me, I felt like Jack Skellington visiting Christmas Town for the first time. There was an air of wonder and genuine curiosity to reading over their remarks, and a fair bit of frustration when it came to the parts they said needed work. But, it wasn’t an ego-based frustration. No, instead I was frustrated because there were a couple of parts that I did not understand, and another few parts that I did not know how to fix.

Those bits of angst stuck with me for a few weeks while I poured over everything again and again and again. I wanted to improve my craft, but more importantly I wanted to tell the story the way it deserves to be told. That desire pushed me through the frustrations, which were more inflamed by the desire, until, eventually, I had an epiphany, and everything fell into place. I’ve had a couple of epiphanies during this project, and each one leaves me as annoyed as it does relieved because in hindsight everything seems so freaking obvious and how blind I am consistently proven to be is just annoying.

Anyway, I figured out the parts of the critique I did not initially understand, and decided on how I would go about doing what needed to be done, which led to the seventh draft. I spent a good three or four months rereading the seventh draft time after time and making whatever adjustments I needed to along the way, but I still consider all of that time and stuff as one single draft.

That happened last year, and I once again distanced myself from it after I finished working on it. For a long time I simply wanted to just live my life, so I spent a good while just mindlessly doing the normie stuff and letting time pass without too much thought or concern. Then, when I wanted to get back to it, I didn’t because the literary agent thing didn’t go anywhere the first time I tried, and putting even more effort into what feels like begging for an opportunity just isn’t something I want to do anymore, so I didn’t.

That left me with two options. Option 1: leave the project where it was and live out the rest of my life without doing anything more with it. Option 2: go down the route of an independent author. I had the idea to go the indie route a few years ago, but reading into how much money it costs to get things off the ground in most cases was beyond my means at the time. Then, there was the fact that I’m an introvert who prefers silence and seclusion over interacting with others. Those factors complimented my bouts of depressed uncertainty and the easy comfort of just living life like a regular person, which led me to decide not to pursue anything any longer.

That was how things were until late August/early September 2025. One day I called my mom to talk through the listless emptiness I was once again starting to feel, and that discussion uncovered some of the answers I was seeking. Specifically, I felt a lot of friction with creating an author platform in years prior because I didn’t see how I could build a following without a physical product to show/sell to them. I made a passing comment about blogs and how I didn’t see the point in my writing one, especially when it came to the amount of money and time that would have to go into creating a website. She suggested that I offer my short stories on the site, and commented about how she, as a customer interested in dipping her toes into my series, felt like she needed some kind of outside resource to make sense of the scope of my world and the complex interactions and relations therein.

It was then that it finally occurred to me that the purpose of my website should be to support by book before it comes out, which is such an obviously simple sentiment that I feel really stupid of not figuring out before. Well, at least figuring out the specifics like what kind of content I should be posting specifically.

Either way, that conversation led to me finally having my answers, and with that my fire and drive was reignited in a way that felt like it never faded in the first place. Some time later that day, or at least some time that week, I asked my older sister to call me so I could tell her about my plans. She asked me how I was planning on driving traffic to the site, and then suggested that I create the social media accounts that I have now. Granted, her suggestions were a bit different, but the core of what she was saying is still evident in my current presentation.

So, that leads us to the creation of the website and socials. During this time I also decided to hire a designer and a proofreader for my book, which is what is currently happening as I write this very sentence. When I get the manuscript back from the proofreader, whatever changes I make will result in the eighth, and final draft which will be released for sale sometime in the coming months.

That is all that I am willing to say about book 1 at this time, so please continue to check in to the social media platforms to get the latest updates about book 1. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you’ll stop by again next week. I hope you have a wonderful day.