Sherilyn Winrose, author of Safe Harbor, talks about her novel:
It’s been written, you’ve come to the conculsion of your story. Joy, Elation! Congratulations you’ve finished a full length novel. Many dream, many aspire, and you’ve completed the goal: to write “The End.”
When I was writing my first manuscript (ms) I had my best friend (the one person in the world who would tell me if it was crap) beta reading as I went. In as much I did clean up editing along the way. Little did I know how far from the finish line I was; probably a good thing in retrospect.
I bought books on how to query and be published. Very quickly I discovered I was a guppy swimming with sharks. One needs an agent to find a publisher. Agents like to take on authors who have an interested publisher. Huh? I need an agent to get a publisher, and to get an agent I need a publisher?
Confused, I set about sending queries and writing my next book.
What I didn’t know?
I had a first draft, not a finished piece. Reject letters came in and I kept writing.
Fast forward to a contest. I got out my ms and started to read in hopes of polishing it into a winning submission. Gasp! I wrote that? It’s littered with infomation dumps, saidisms, head hopping.. good gracious no wonder all I got were reject letters.
Time for the first real rewrite/edit. Good news? I still love my characters and the stories I’ve written. Bad news? As I learn and grow as a writer I find myself back in the orginal mss looking to clean them up.
The journey from “The End” to Published is a long road. I made it, and stand as a testiment that hard work and perseverance does indeed pay off.
Sherilyn’s debut novel, Safe Harbor, is available through Second Wind Publishing.
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