I did it! Penumbra is out to test readers as of last Friday!

It feels like I’ve been working on the manuscript for forever and now that it’s “done” I’m not exactly sure what to do with myself. I’m sure you know the feeling–you finally finish a big project you’ve dedicated so much time to for weeks or months then it’s like… what do I do now?

Of course the manuscript isn’t completely finished yet. In fact, as a whole I would estimate it’s only about 70% complete. Story-wise it’s pretty close (95%) the only changes that might get made will be dependent on feedback from my test readers. The majority of changes from this point forward are all sub and copy edits, aka polishing. From that standpoint, I’d say it’s about 20% complete. I need to essentially go through each chapter with a fine-tooth comb and fix functional things, like grammar/spelling but also do polish adjustments, such as making sure the dialogue of different characters isn’t all the same, my descriptions are all fluid, sentences and paragraphs are all optimized, etc. Yeah… lots of work to do.

And that’s just the thing that I think many new authors don’t realize. The work isn’t over when you finish writing the story. In many ways, the story is just beginning. During my last rewrite, I did a considerable amount of polishing already, but there’s still loads to do.

“So why send it out to test readers now, if it’s not done yet,” you may ask?

That’s a great question! Really it comes down to my own style. For example, a friend of mine Rob Code (who will be published and famous in ten years, I would put money down on that) wouldn’t send out a manuscript at this level, because he really values the feedback he gets on specifics about detail/copy edits/etc. I, on the other hand, am far more concerned about the flow of my story.

Here’s the thing, I’m no professional, but I’m very comfortable that I can take a paragraph that I’ve poorly written and make the changes I need to make to give it a strong, polished edge. But by this point I’ve written and re-written the story 7-8 times and I’ve spent so much time engrossed it that I really need other eyes on it to help catch things that might not be working.

But whew, I tell you what. I’ve learned so much about my self and personal writing style as I’ve dedicated time to writing. I started Penumbra years ago, but didn’t allot as much time to it as I really should have (but to be fair, I was also going to school and working full time, so time was sparse usually.) Graduating has given me much more opportunity to work on this so it’s really been the past year that I’ve been able to focus on it.

Where do I go from here though? That’s the question I’m torn on. Naturally I need to polish the manuscript. But do I move on to the sequel? Start another novel? I’ve got several ideas I want to pursue, but I haven’t decided what to do yet.

Along those same lines, I need to consider my strategy once I finish polish and test readers. Approaching agents and publishers. We’ll see.