Edits to my debut novel, “A Killer Secret,” are nearly finished. Boy has this book been a journey! I started writing it slowly in what little spare time I had between my job as a creative executive at an ad agency and my crazy home life filled with seven rambunctious kids and one very amazing wife. Okay, full disclosure: two of the oldest kids are out of the house now. But I left out the two dogs, two cats, and one fish. Not to mention the odd rabbit now and again.
I wrote the first few chapters in March 2017 at a coffee shop and at a hotel in Denver where I’d accompanied my wife to a banking conference. After that, I’d write on lunch breaks, on airplanes to and from business trips, in hotel rooms, late at night when the rest of the house was asleep. I thought about my characters during my daily commutes. I practiced dialogue out loud when nobody else was home.
I would write a scene here, a snippet of dialogue there. Progress was unsteady. My writing times sporadic and unpredictable. And then I lost my job last Halloween. Well that’s not true. I know where it is, but I’m not in it. I was the victim of a global merger. I went home, put on a mask, and hid my misery and embarrassment long enough to trick or treat with the kids.
That was nearly 10 months ago. It was the lowest point in my professional career. It was quite a blow to my ego, too. You want to know something weird though? The world didn’t end. My wife and kids didn’t love me less.
So there I was with time on my hands and a half-finished manuscript. I took six months and finished the first draft while I thought about the next chapter in my career. Then I put it away and out of my mind for a little over a month so I could concentrate on finding a job, and so I could look at it fresh when I started the edit.
To my surprise, I still loved the story when I reread the manuscript. Sure there were some bad sentences, weird scene shifts, and a ton of inconsistencies, but I liked the book as a whole. I even found that I like the editing process.
But who cares what I think! I should like my own story. After two rounds of edits, the book is in the hands of my first beta reader – my wife. If she likes it, I’ll send it to a handful of others to read and critique. After making any final edits based on their feedback, I’ll work on the audiobook production and finalize the layout for the ebook and print editions.
My goal is an early December launch. So stay tuned!
