Of ending and beginnings

The first draft of the novel is done… now what?

One of my favourite scenes from Pixar’s “Soul” comes when the struggling pianist, Joe Gardner, achieves his lifelong aspiration of performing alongside one of his jazz idols, Dorothea Williams. After a great performance, they stand outside the club and, realizing he’s now gotten everything he thought he ever wanted, Joe turns to Dorothea and asks hesitantly, “What happens next?”

She smiles enigmatically at him, “We come back tomorrow night and do it all again.”

I had a very similar moment last Saturday night after I closed up my laptop while sitting in our building’s common library. I’d been up there for three hours working on the final scene of my novel. It had been light out when I started, but the room was now completely dark.

I was finished. The first draft of the first novel in my epic high fantasy series was done.

I came back to our apartment and told my husband that I felt a bit shaky with all the emotions roiling inside of me.

But, as quickly as those feelings had surged, they emptied out of me. All that remained was one question…

Now what?

Polishing the first draft

My husband and I re-read the entire draft aloud together not that long ago, and there were definitely little typos and pacing issues that we noticed along the way. Things like too much description here, but not enough there, repetitive turns of phrase, little character ticks—that sort of thing.

It’s now my job to go over the draft with a fine tooth comb and get rid of all the obvious tangles.

I am also a big believer in the cinematic rule of three—show the audience something, remind them later and then bring it back one last time to make sure it sticks in their memory. There are certain plot points and characters that I need to make sure I’m resurfacing the right number of times in the right way to ensure that they’re being hammered home subtly but firmly to my readers.

Doing a deeper dive into the in’s and out’s of self publication

When I first began writing the novel series in the early 2000s, I believed that the only option to get it into the hands of readers was to have it picked up by a publisher of fantasy books. I also knew that the chances of that happening were incredibly slim.

For example, legend has it that the “Harry Potter” series was rejected 12 times before it was ultimately accepted for publication.

I don’t really have any aspirations to become the next J.K. Rowling and, more to the point, I don’t see myself as having the time. It takes a great deal of bandwidth to shop a book around to publishers and even more patience to wait potentially years for the book to actually be published and distributed. My own experience with illustrating “The Perfect Ride” taught me that. Owl Kids Books first reached out to me in April 2023 about illustrating the book. I completed the illustrations from September 2024 to November 2025, and the book won’t be in stores until early 2027.

I know myself and I don’t have that kind of patience when it comes to my novel. I’ve put way too many years into this project already.

Thankfully, self-publishing is a much more viable option for authors than it was when I first started working on the story. There’s a fairly established path that includes publication on Kindle, e-Book and print-on-demand paperbacks alongside monetization for each stream.

Certainly there’s work and expense involved by going this route too, but I feel confident that as someone who has been self-employed for years, I have the skills and the discipline for the process.

Hiring an editor

One of the biggest criticisms I’ve read about some authors who have self published is that their books aren’t of the same quality as those who have passed through the hands of an editor at a traditional publishing house.

My solution to this is simple—I’m going to hire one.

I reached out to a friend who previously worked at a traditional publishing house and asked if she could point me to the best freelance editor and novel whisperer she knew. Because self-publishing is so popular now, there are loads of folks out there doing this kind of work, but I specifically wanted someone who would pass the muster of a publishing house.

She was excited to hear that my novel was so close to completion and more than happy to provide me a name. I plan to reach out after my own pass of the novel is done.

Passing the novel on to my beta readers

After my hired editor has done her work, I plan to send the draft to my chosen beta readers.

Before anyone jumps up to offer to become a beta reader, I already have folks in mind who were chosen specifically for their interest in the fantasy genre and because they weren’t among the people who have previously had one of my reader’s drafts over the years. I’ve likely distributed dozens of different iterations of the story and I need people who can come to it fresh, without any lingering bits of clutter unconsciously carried forward from those past drafts.

These beta readers will also be getting specific questions to help shape their feedback. The intention is to give the story a test drive, not rebuild the entire engine block afterwards. My main concern is to make sure all the pieces are landing as needed—particularly those story points that will tie into the next book.

Designing the cover art

I am very much on the fence at the moment about whether I will be designing and illustrating the cover of the book myself.

On one hand, I do have a very specific idea for the cover, one that I think captures the overall story and vibe well. It’s also a concept that I could see being used to connect the subsequent books in the series visually.

On the other hand, I don’t know that I am the best person to execute that vision or if that concept fits well enough with the established fantasy book cover norms.

I am committed to not feeding the AI beast to create my cover art. I know this has become a popular trend, but I have put far too much effort into lovingly crafting this world and this story. I have no interest in slapping some AI prompt-generated output on the cover now.

Publishing the novel

Fairly self explanatory, but I suspect there are still lots of nitty-gritty details that I will uncover about this final phase during the course of my research into the self-publishing process.

It’s worth noting that the first book’s title has changed again—hopefully the last time—from “The Rothar Medallion” to “The Thief and the Medallion.”

While “The Rothar Medallion” had a nice ring to it, I feel like the new title brings the focus back to my charismatic thief around whom much of the plot of the first book is centred.

Regardless, my goal is to self-publish before the end of 2026.

Starting work on the next book

And then, it’s on to the next book.

My guess at this point is that to write the full arc of the story that I have in my head will take anywhere from three to five books to complete.

One thing I have learned through rediscovering the first novel is I need to trust myself. After all these years, I have a solid idea of where the story will go and it’s a matter of finding the right beats to get it there.

I suspect this is what Dorothea means when she tells Joe that the next step is to do it all again. No matter how big the milestone, a creative’s journey never ends.

I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to this older fish and says, “I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.”

“The ocean?” says the older fish. “That’s what you’re in right now.”

“This?” says the young fish. “This is water. What I want is the ocean.”

~ Dorothea Williams, “Soul”

In creativity and in life, it can sometimes feel like our stubborn Inner Critic and reckless Wild Child are constantly making our lives miserable with their conflicting demands and messages.

In our April CreativiTEA workshop, I will be teaching folks how to listen to their wisdom and discover a collective path forward.

Tickets are limited, so don’t delay!

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