Authors, Novelists, Norm Green, Norman Green, Shooting Dr Jack, Angel of Montague Street, Edgar Award, Shamus Award, Brian DeFiore, Mystery Writers of America, Brooklyn, Alexandra Martillo,Tommy Bagadonuts, American Writers

Dec 20, 2013

 

Done, Da, Done, Done

All of a sudden I have a lot more free time on my hands. I did it, I finally finished the writing project I’ve been working on. The current title is ‘A Sensation of Shadow.’

Now what I need to do is let go. I have always been able to quarantine the process of writing from the business of publishing, so for the whole time I was writing this story I haven’t spent much time or energy sweating agents or editors or money or any of that. Now that wall has been breached. And my major problem with this part of the process is that there isn’t a whole lot more I can do, right at the moment. And even if there was, I am no salesman, I’d have trouble selling cheeseburgers to a starving man. And patience and faith are not virtues I know much about.

Funny, though, the feeling I got when I finally wrapped this one up was, relief. I think it’s because you always start out with a vision or an idea of what you want your book to be, how you want it to feel, and the question for me is, how close to my ideal am I going to get this time? Can I really make this the kind of book that I saw in my mind’s eye when I began? And then compound that with the fact that this is a different kind of novel than what I’ve done before. Initially I wondered if I was a fool to take on the theme that I wanted to work with.

Did I do it? I suppose that remains to be seen. A manuscript is not a book, it has to pass through a couple of different fires before that happens, and I have a long way to go on this one. But… Reading over my last two chapters, I feel relieved. I think I came pretty close.

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