Exciting times

With the imminent publication of my first Novel. Piscium, there is a sudden rush of new things to consider. Writing is the easy bit. Sit down with a keyboard and screen and let the words flow. The story always has a framework. Not necessarily written down, although sometimes I do sketch out a structure, but certainly existing in my mind. But the writing process puts the flesh on the bones. Characters emerge from the shadows to take on key roles ans subplots are like lanes running off the main road, each of which may provide an interesting destination.

The next bit is harder. Having written “The End” at the first competed manuscript of "Piscium’, I then started the editing process. While my beta readers were positive about the book, then under the working title “Shrike”, a commissioning editor told me that at 170,000 words the book was far too long to be considered for publication. A series of revisions followed, with much of the back story removed, which in itself required a lot of subsequent rewriting. The result was Piscium at comfortably under 100,000 words. but as it turned out, the publishing process was far from over. I’ll talk more about this in the following blog posts, but safe to say it becomes a story in itself.

At a recent dinner party I was explaining that I was going down the self publishing route. The chap sitting next to me said, ‘so, that’s vanity publishing isn’t it?’ Given the metaphorical blood, swear and tears in reaching this point, I can only say that if this was vanity publishing, vanity comes at a very high price.

Please keep an eye out on the peterwedderburn.com website and amazon for the ebook version of Piscium, launching shortly, with a paperback version not far behind.