It’s Not the End, a Novel Experience

 

I finished the story and I told the girl to read to, “The End.”  “No, that’s not the end,” she said. An audience doesn’t get to choose I said. She told me there were things I must explain. I said that’s called artist’s license. She stonewalled, turned a deaf ear. A day and another day, “It’s not the end,” she said. I listened and wrote five more chapters or maybe it was seven. I picked up the keys and put them in locks, got the old map from the capsule, pushed characters to new locations and created more trouble resolving some loose ends.

Dungeon Dreams became a book as I wrote a chapter that lead to another chapter and then more. Insistent granddaughters squeezed more from me week after week. There was never an outline though plot emerged and characters developed. I wrote backstory and lists to focus actors in character and the scenes in order.

Dungeon Dreams was a novel in the making. I wanted that after plowing one under. I was challenged, stretching logic and chronology to match structure and storyline as subplots pranced off in a dozen directions. I listed values to introduce and clarify as I developed goals for characters to accomplish as they came to the stage. One girl read aloud over my shoulder as the words appeared. It was a raw, unedited experience shared in “read-alouds” off the screen. We backed up to include the sister or to re-write what happened before.

The inevitable statement, meant as a compliment, “You should publish this,” was great to hear, but I demurred. I would print a copy and put covers on it. “No, you did that. Publish this!” I looked at options, calculated for self-publishing schemes and agents and editors. A family project is what it is, great fun and episode after episode it drew us closer. “Publish it,” They said.

I introduced a serious meeting, “If you edit, if you critique, if you help finish, I will publish it.” I wrote up my proposal including them as editors. If they wanted to see the book complete I required they jump in the ink with me. With sticky notes, marking pens, highlighters and manuscripts, I set them to work. Not fixing words yet, but finding the broken logic. What are the questions you need to ask so you understand? Write that down. Tell me what you don’t like about characters and how the villain could be more fun. We had editorial meetings and brought in little brother, age six. He said there should be a test at the end. I asked how old the readers might be to which they said, like us when it began 9,10, maybe 14. I told them they could use this experience in their entrance letter for college, to keep them in the game.

I pushed it back to my editors until they could stand no more. I read aloud and put it away. It haunted my nights and I edited again. I studied my flawed geography and set the time line to logical chronology. I cut eleven percent after I found a teacher who unraveled pieces and left me with the sense I could fix the issues. I looked for structure and ways to bring two centuries of story together in a polite way that would satisfy my editors/audience who were done, done, done. Someday they will read the finished book and wonder at the love story that grew after they left. The dreams that weave together yesterday and today give life to the final scene that’s out there waiting for that time when they are no longer sick to death of editing.

The book went beta with friends who read and gave feedback. From edit until ebook was four years and three after the initial start. I pulled the ebook three times to make minor changes and once again when I got the paper proof from CreateSpace.

Dungeon opening, sealed in with new paving 

When my editors thought it was over, when they thought it was the end and I didn’t call another meeting; I brought it to the meat grinder at Smashwords. The grinder cranked through my words and blessed my formatting and gave Dungeon Dreams an ISBN and distributed my ebook to the four corners of the market to Barnes and Noble, to Sony, to Kobo, to Apple Books and libraries I’ll never see and vendors I never heard of. “That’s not the end,” she said when I gave her the URL. “It’s just on screen, not a book! No signature.

”

I put it up on Amazon, and then I found CreateSpace. If I was persistent, if I learned the system, if I gave another surge, I could have a paper copy, a flesh and blood book if you will. My neighbor read and then created the cover art and I slogged through the tutorial to turn it into a cover.

After seven years plus one for marketing and though she won’t read it again for a dozen years, that’s The End!

Except, late at night it calls to me. “You know the villain could be better. The protagonist is too nice. It’s not the end, yet. What happened to that other key?”

“Sequel?” I said.

Dungeon Bridge erased & gone

I’ve given the book away, I sold it over dinner and I stood on street corners asking strangers to take it home for their kids. I send out a barrage of tweets to slip in a few that say I have this book you should consider. I thought writing was fun and then hard as it turned to editing. I needed to write again and again until I was sick of it. First it seemed enough to give it to family and perhaps see a few go out to the public. Before ebook publishing, before print-on-demand publishing and desktop publishing, most writers gave up. Now there are fifteen million new books a year. All those old manuscripts are crawling to life so the competition is huge. I get some pleasure out of seeing this book and my others take life and help fund NatureTrack.org and pay for girls’ literacy in Turkey.

One last thing? If you read my books, write a review. Please! There's a place for that where you buy them on line. It's a huge thing. In fact it is THE END!