So The Gray Summer Is Written. Now What?

Some people take longer than others to finish writing their novels. For example, Flagrant Foul, from start to finish, took about three years to finish writing. Then it took another two years to be crafted into what was eventually published.

For The Gray Summer, however, my long-suffering follow-up project, it’s taken quite a bit longer to finish writing.

Okay. It took nine years.

To put it in perspective, when I started The Gray Summer, most of social media was in its infancy, George W. Bush was still President and the final Harry Potter book had just come out.

I won’t get into all of the twists and turns that made it writing The Gray Summer take so long, especially since none of it involves the Loch Ness Monster, D.B. Cooper to Sasquatch.

But I can say that on Labor Day 2016, I finally wrote the last word for the first draft of The Gray Summer.

Yes, after nine year, a ton of fits and starts, a corrupt file, an aborted blog idea and whole lot of other things, 69,001 words and approximately 361 pages are now ready for the next step.

And what is the next step, exactly? Well, that’s an excellent question. Given that I’m a massive control freak when it comes to my writing, my move will probably be to self-publish, as I did with Flagrant Foul. My thought process is that I’d rather do that than to sit around and watch publisher after publisher mull over the manuscript before ultimately taking a pass.

Sure, that means a lot of the leg work, like the cover and marketing, will fall on me. And that didn’t exactly work for me the last time. Then again, it’s a much different day and age than when I last self-published. The lessons I learned from that (coupled with a LOT more resources available to authors like myself) should come in handy this time around.

Impressively, I did so happen to get a cover put together for The Gray Summer. And that’s certainly on my list of things to put out in the very near future. Plus, as an extra-added bonus, I have not one, but two book trailers that I’ll be posting prior to publication.

And when will you get to see The Gray Summer? Next year. I have a date in mind, of course, but that will ultimately be something I reveal at a later date. Right now, I have to work on a few other things…

…like proofreading and editing…