I think surprise was the main one for me, considering i'd written it (a little over 100k words) in just under 3 months... it needs serious work (something i'm willing to give it) but it's gonna get there
My first was a true life book. I just wanted people to know they didn't have to be perfect to have a family through adoption. There was a sense of achievement but no real fireworks. All I'd done, was write down a true account of what we'd done. No one wanted it because it wasn't dramatic enough. So I self published it. The first fiction came a year later. It took me seven months to write but it had been in my head for 25 years. When I'd written the last line, I cried. For fifteen minutes I cried because I felt my world had ended. I'd become so close to these characters that I felt like someone in my family had died. When the first proof copy of the paperback dropped through the door, I ran around the house screaming like a proper nut job. There are no words to describe how I felt that day, I couldn't even speak properly and my husband had a voicemail message from me to prove that fact. I'm editing my third book, (second fiction). It's only been in my head since fifteen minutes after the end of the first fiction so has taken me over two years to research and write. I think there will be more tears when I get this proof back too - but they will be tears of relief. To me, finishing a book is one of the best feelings I've had in my life because I feel they are the only things I ever start and finish properly.
Define finish. As in, I made it to the spot where I typed "the end?" Didn't matter much. As in, it's published and can no longer be edited? Hmm . . . I'll let you know if that ever happens. Book 1 is being edited. Book 2 is being critiqued. Book 3 is being written. Books 4, 5 & 6, are simmering in my head vying for attention and begging me to pick one and commit to writing it next. Will it be mental illness, history of Wales, a satire about the level of Hell Dante missed (the one where the writing groups are), or something else I haven't thought of yet? I guess that's why typing "the end" wasn't all that exciting. There was still work to do and so many others waiting to be written.
I'd always wanted to write a book, I guess now I know how vague of a thought that really is. It's like always wanting to drive a car, with no thoughts to how they operate, rules of the road, or even the whole purpose. Getting from one place to another. Writing this monstrosity exposed all of my weaknesses that i'd been subconsciously covering my entire life. I've spent the last half a year since trying to figure out 'writing' again. Really hope things start to make sense again.
I feel like the writer who said "I hate to write, but I love to have written." But the love doesn't last long. I had to go back to edit a book I wrote nine years ago, when I submitted it to another printer with different formatting rules. It was very hard to re-read it with a fresh eye; I mostly just wanted to get the hell over with it.
I have completed (edited and formatted) a novel, which I will struggle to get published traditionally in the present market, mainly because of its length. I'd need to cut it in half in order to be considered as a first-time novelist ...which I'm not prepared to do. And no, it can't be published in two volumes. The story doesn't break like that. I've cut a huge amount out during the edit ...the overwriting, the scenes and sentences I didn't need, etc. In fact more than a third of the entire piece went during the many edits. What's left needs to stay for the story to flow, to make sense, and to have the effect I want. However, I'm working on a synopsis just now, to see what I come up with. I have in mind one agency that MIGHT consider it. If not, it's Kindle self-pub/print on demand for me.
Finished mine in late 2015, after starting in 1995, with a thirteen year break in the middle... Felt like I had finished the 17000 mile trek with my characters. But amazing satisfaction. Kept going down every night for a week to reread the last chapter. Then the editing started, and then the marketing.
