Oh, You Thought You Were Done?

The book is written. Revised, even.

The illustrations are complete.

A thirty-day Kickstarter campaign is completed and funded.

Now, it’s time to relax. Now, it is complete. It is done.

Yeah, no.

The book is written and revised! But now it’s time for a real nitty gritty edit. And then my formatter wife will format with illustrations… something she’s never done before. She’s good, and I know it’ll look good, but it’ll be grueling.

And then we get to do another edit.

And probably one more after that.

And then we can get the cover formatted, because you can’t do that until you have the insides finalized (or really, really, really close to it).

And then we can send it off to the printer. And then wait. And then wait some more. And then get allthebooks! And then time to address all the packages and mail all the books to the amazing backers who made the book possible.

And then…

Um, by then we’ll probably be ramping up for the next Kickstarter campaign.

So, this is not complaining. Honestly, my work here is mostly done for Mr. Frankie, Substitute Dragon. Yes, I’ll be working on the revisions and editing, but that’s relatively simple for me at this point. I trust my wife/editor. She’s amazing, as I’ve said before.

What I am doing is noting the reality of an author: You’ll climb one mountain, appreciate the view, and then start prepping for the next mountain. I’ve already started the rough draft for the next book, and I’ve revised the two books between that one and Mr. Frankie. There ain’t no pausing. There’s the next book, and the next, and the next.

There are two extremes here:

You can choose to write one book at a time, and not touch the next book until the first is out in the world. I don’t suggest this extreme, as there’s a fair amount of downtime if you work in a team like I do. (Thank you, my bride!) I can use this downtime to get moving with the next project.

Or: Rush to get allthebooks done, without pausing to appreciate how far you’ve come. I tend to lean this way, which also isn’t great. It means I tend to not celebrate, just focusing on what has to get done. Don’t take my example.

Either way or wherever you land in the middle… finishing one book isn’t the end of your story as a writer. It’s the end of that story in the book, sure, but your story is so much bigger!