Now for the hard part

It's taken three years, but I'm finally done. At least with my MFA (I officially graduate in April). Okay, I'm done with my manuscript, too, but that only took six months.

Only. The final draft of Crown Jewels is roughly 51,000 words. Getting to those 51K words required writing somewhere in the 70K word range, though.

Aren't rewrites fun?

Now it's time to get it published. My first choice is to have it picked up by a traditional publisher, which means finding an agent, which means a lot of cold calls for this introvert.

My other option is to self-publish which, while it offers instant gratification, also comes with it's own challenges. You know, like layout, artwork, finding a printer, getting your book somewhere where dealers can find them, and so on. All things that require either time or money.

My current plan is to spend six months looking for an editor and then, if I don't have any luck, self-publish using IngramSpark with a release date of Black Friday.

Wish me luck.