Putting Your Dreams On Hold

I knew writing was going to be a tough journey, and I had prepared myself for a mammoth task ahead. I was ready to give my all to learn everything I needed to know about the publishing world.

So far I’ve been lucky and have had a few short stories published, but my one dream has been to see my name on a book cover. I had hoped it would’ve been this year, but I’m now prepared to put that dream on hold.

Since 2002 I’ve been busy building a writing CV by focusing on short stories which I’ve entered into competitions and have submitted to call-out for anthologies. By writing short stories and having them selected for publication has also help me to build my confidence so much so that I wrote three novels.

Novel writing isn’t easy. My first two novels were just a practice run, but the third one I had high hopes for. It was a competition win that gave me the idea for the third novel. It took me six years of writing and editing to get it to a higher enough standard where I felt it was ready to do the rounds of publishers.

After all, I had an editor help me knock the kinks out of it.

The feedback I received from most of the publishers I had sent it to were positive, but they still rejected it. Then I sent it to a local publisher. They took a good look at my novel and gave me positive feedback, but said it still needed more editing.

After eight more months of editing with the help of an editor, I returned my novel to the publisher and waited.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy working on short stories and was lucky enough to have some acceptances, but my heart and hopes were with my novel.

Had I done enough?

The answer when it came shattered my dreams as it wasn’t what I had built my expectations upon. The publishers have made the decision to focus all their resources into publishing nonfiction, as they have found fiction more difficult to sell in today’s world.

They were kind enough to send me the notes they had made while reading my novel. Their email was very encouraging too, as they explained that there’s lot which is right with the novel, and not to give up on it.

One of the main problems is that it’s too long.

When I originally began the novel I wanted to aim for about 80k, but was told by a well-established Random House agent that my novel was too short and that crime novel were 100k plus.

I’ve decided to go back to the drawing board, and re-plot my novel while cutting the word count.

All good practice, I suppose.

My dream seems more than a lifetime away, but if I give up now, I’m giving into failure.

So if I go quiet, you know where I am. I’ll be busy rebuilding my dream.

While I’m gone you might like to check out my author’s page.

Happy writing all.