Nailing it Shut

I have emerged just now from the labyrinthine bog of multiple rounds of editing and revisions on my book. My new novel A Year Owed is done, and I'm releasing it to the ruthless public in less than a month.

The infinite maze of editing. 

This is good. 

I am not afraid. 

Fear is the mind killer.

What I am doing, however, is tensing my gut. I must admit that at this point I cannot tell if any of it is actually good. My editor said it is, and even I have had moments of surety during which I am able to recognize a respectable story and maybe even some hints of real talent. Other times, I'm worried it's contrived drivel. I suppose its just the impossibility of judging your own work with an objective eye that's keeping me from knowing for sure. Still, as I was about to release my novella, renatus, two years ago, I was much more convinced that it would be well received. 

Aside: Let's be clear here: by "well received," I mean that the hundred or so people I figured would read it wouldn't hate it and that some of those might actually enjoy it. 

Maybe that optimism was just inexperience--not to say I'm all that "experienced" now. On the other hand, I think that my current trepidation may also be because renatus was a much less vulnerable work than A Year Owed. It didn't cut itself open and bleed. The new book is different. I don't think it is what people would expect from me. A Year Owed is about loss, regret, hard choices, and some seriously callous behavior. It's not renatus; it's a very different beast. And it exposes me as an author and a human being much more than renatus or any of my shorter works ever could.

My main focus in writing it was to build up believable, flawed, yet likable characters that I hope readers can connect with. Without that, any work of fiction is largely meaningless. I've also tried to craft an interesting plot layered over-top a setting and back-story that I intend to amplify the reader's feelings and engagement level. It's taken heaps of persistence and lots of rewriting to get it to the point it's at now. I began this back in early 2014, and here it is early 2016.

In the end, the important thing is that it's done, and soon you can judge it for yourself. I'm not sure its great. I'm not sure its awful. It may be neither. It may be both. But I'm putting a nail in it and handing it over to you.

Read the first chapter here.