This weekend I did something I\u2019ve never done before.<\/p>\n
I finished a book.<\/p>\n
No, not reading one. Writing one.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been writing since I was a child. In fact, my kids would tell you that I wrote a book as a child. It was called Eggnog the Elephant, a picture book about the adventures of a pink elephant (don\u2019t ask me; I was in grade school), and I suppose you could say it was self-published because I drew the illustrations and wrote each page and bound it myself. One of them still has the book I made.<\/p>\n
I guess that\u2019s because I\u2019ve always wanted to be a writer, and it\u2019s worked out for me. Writing and editing have been my vocation. Since I was a teenager \u2013 and that was a long time ago \u2013 I\u2019ve written for and edited for newspapers and magazines. I\u2019ve even had work published \u2013 and some who know me may be surprised at this \u2013 in poetry collections.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve never before written a book.<\/p>\n
Oh, I\u2019ve started dozens of books. Yet somewhere along the way I lost interest, or didn\u2019t think the book was very good, or couldn\u2019t figure out what to do next.<\/p>\n
This one was different. At times the story just seemed to pour out. It went places I never expected it to go, and I\u2019m happy with it. I like the characters, I like the story and I like the setting.<\/p>\n
And golly did it pour.<\/p>\n
When I started I thought I was writing one book. As I got near the end of the first volume \u2013 about 70,000 words, or a short novel \u2013 I thought it would be three volumes.<\/p>\n
I was wrong.<\/p>\n
Finished, it\u2019s six volumes, totaling 388,000 words. For perspective, that makes the overall novel about two-thirds the length of War and Peace, <\/em>but each volume is about the length of Hemingway\u2019s The Sun Also Rises. <\/em>To put it another way, the overall novel would run about 1500 paperback pages, and each volume, about 250 paperback pages.<\/p>\n I think you can see why I broke it down into shorter volumes.<\/p>\n My wife says she thinks it\u2019s good, and I don\u2019t think she\u2019s just saying that. When Julie read the last line on Sunday, she cried. I think that means it\u2019s good. Gosh, I hope so anyway. I\u2019d hate to think it was bad enough to make her weep.<\/p>\n Now come revisions. I consider what I\u2019ve done over the last nine or ten months a first draft. I anticipate it\u2019s going to take me a couple of months to revise it. I plan to print it on paper that\u2019s already punched for a three-ring binder and edit it in binders.<\/p>\n Several binders.<\/p>\n Several big, thick, heavy binders.<\/p>\n I guess in addition to buying a case of paper, I\u2019ll need to invest in a lot of red pens.<\/p>\n Then, when my revisions are complete, I\u2019ll send it to a couple of people whose input I value, and after I take a look at their suggestions (a process that will likely take months as well), I guess I\u2019ll be ready to try to get it published.<\/p>\n It certainly would be nice if it did sell and I was able to supplement our ministry income, but who knows?<\/p>\n Would you pray for me as I revise this behemoth? Pray that I am able to discern what needs to be added and improved, and equally important, what needs to be cut. Would you also pray now that I\u2019ll be able to find a publisher for it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This weekend I did something I\u2019ve never done before. I finished a book. No, not reading one. Writing one. I\u2019ve been writing since I was a child. In fact, my kids would tell you that I wrote a book as a child. It was called Eggnog the Elephant, a picture book about the adventures of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-family","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}