Once More Unto the Breach

...I really wish that was "Once more unto the Beach".  I could really use a vacation right now.  Oh, wait; I'm leaving for Dragon*Con in less than three days.  Never mind.  ^_^

Anyway, I finished with the first round of edits on The Accidental Warlock tonight.  The book sits at version 1.22, which means "first draft, been edited twice, had two scenes undergo additional significant changes".  Don't laugh, it works for me.  As soon as I finish writing this, I'll send it off to my pre-readers, and the next wave of edits will happen after that.

And hell's bells, I'm still scared.

I talked about this some in my last entry (which was way too long ago, but I was editing, so I blame that).  Yes, my fear of failure is still much stronger than my fear of critique, so it's not like I'm going to give in and not send out the story.  And I want people to read this.  Far, far too much of what I write, nobody else ever sees.  It's just that sending it out for other people to read leads to too damn many questions.

Will anyone like this?  Will they read the first chapter and be able to guess the entire story?  Will they think the romance doesn't work?  Will they think the villain's too subtle or not subtle enough?  Will they wonder what the hell's going on when I thought I spelled everything out clearly?  Will I get my story back with remarks that basically amount to "Don't bother trying to get this published"?

Yes, I am in fact a roiling ball of insecurities right now.

But the thing is, there's no other way to do this.  There's not a chance in hell I'd shoot myself in the foot by querying agents with a book that nobody else had ever read.  And the friends who've agreed to read TAW are all pretty familiar with how I write; they've all read at least one of my other books, though for some of them, it's been a long, long time.  I've gotten better since then, I know that much.

I try telling myself that I might have nothing to worry about, but I know I'll get back critique that's hard to hear.  But in the end, that will make the book better.  It has to.  And anything's better than hearing nothing at all.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have e-mails to send.