When a Book is Done

I just finished writing my seventh book. I've gone beyond being surprised that this is what I do to having a sense of familiarity - most of the time.

As I'm finishing writing a book there's always a moment of a feeling that this has been a complete waste of my time, that I've written a story that makes no sense and serves no purpose. It's a feeling that I have to power through. I remind myself that I'm where I believe God wants me to be, and if I'm doing what He wants me to, then it's never worthless. So I finish it regardless of my feelings.

When it's completed I do a read through to correct any errors I find in grammar or plot. Sometimes I may add more detail that I didn't have at the time of writing. I may add another scene or two. Usually as I read through it I have a sense of re-reading a much beloved book, one written by someone else. I'm astounded that a story that I would love to read came from me. It's an odd feeling.

After that, I send it out to my editors. When I read through my books, I know what I meant to say so I sometimes miss obvious typos. My brain automatically fixes what I wrote, and I don't even see it. So I have multiple eyes check my work before I publish it. They also tell me when they don't understand something or when I've changed a name or a plot point and didn't fix it throughout. Even with four of us going through the work, I know that we don't catch every mistake, but we do our best. Considering we're all amateurs I think we do pretty well.

When I get their notes back, I fix my errors and get the book formatted to be published. I add a table of contents, add a letter to my readers a dedication page, and a Bible verse. I go order a cover to be made. Then I'm ready to post it on Amazon Kindle and it's available to purchase.

My seventh book is my second Christmas novella. I'm hoping to have it available to purchase by November. This is the first book that when I've finished I feel like I missed something somewhere. I don't know where it is, but I just sense that there was a point that I was on the verge of making that somehow got missed - maybe that I missed the point of the whole book. There's also a major plot point that I got to the end and feel like it just doesn't work. I've never had this before and honestly it makes me nervous. I wonder if it wasn't the time for me to work on this story, or if I've gotten so comfortable with the process that maybe I didn't rely on God as much as normal, and so He wasn't leading like He has. This story has been on my mind for three years, and yet it's caused me so much difficulty. I don't know what I'm going to discover when I go to do the read through.

I never like to start the read through. It's always a bit frightening to read what I've written because I'm scared that I'll find out it wasn't as good as I thought it was. But what happens when you're not even sure it's any good? It's going to be hard to make myself sit down and look through it.

If you would, I would like some prayer. Prayer does amazing things, and when we all band together and pray in unison, it's even more awesome. Pray that God will direct as I do my read through. I want everything I do to honor and glorify Him. I don't want this to be done in my strength and my ability. I want Him to shine through in every page. Pray that I am open to His leading. Pray that this story will touch lives somehow. This is my goal. It's all meaningless if it doesn't honor God.