staying the path
The road to becoming a writer (and here I don’t mean someone who writes, but someone who has published their work) is rough. It’s not clearly marked. In fact it’s not so much a road as a barely delineated path.
What I mean is that I have no clue what I’m doing. I don’t know the next step. I can look at my manuscript, see the words, make a million edits, but I don’t know where to go from there. How does it get from my computer and into the world?
Late last year the next Big Step for me was sharing my work. Passing my story along to critique partners and beta readers. Getting feedback. Deciding what to do with feedback is another murky area with no clear directions, one that I’m still figuring out as I go. What changes do I make? How much influence do I let outside opinions have on my work? And what if some reviews are positive and others not so much? What then? Do you scrap it? Or go forward, regardless of what people think?
Now what?!
Do I submit this collection of words and thoughts to publishers? Agents? What’s the difference and which one do I need first? How do I go about a query letter? (Yes, I have googled this and found shining examples. Writing a book and writing a Please Publish Me I’m Wonderful letter are two entirely different things).
Help! She says as she sits roadside waiting for someone to slow down and point her in the right direction.