Well, Persona is finished.
Or at least a draft of Persona is finished. Here in the next couple of weeks I’ll be searching for an appropriate editor to go through it, and then I’ll edit and edit and … edit some more.
Until then, I’m in celebratory mode. I’ve got Nantucket Dark Chocolate cookies (from Pepperidge Farm) and I intend to go see Thor 2 at some point over the weekend. I highly encourage everyone to do the same … If not go see the movie, then at least get some cookies.
It has been quite a journey since June. For those of you who remember or were following along, I started serializing Persona on Wattpad and its own story blog back in June and I posted one chapter per week until … well … until this week.
So for a little over five months I was committed to drafting a chapter, revising a chapter, and posting a chapter every week. This was, as you can imagine, quite a hectic schedule for someone who already works full time, goes to school full time, and is a single parent.
Still, it was fun.
I enjoyed the interaction with readers and I liked the challenge of the schedule (at least at first.) When school starting taking over the bulk of my time I found myself having to be far more lax with the revision portion of the week than I wanted.
The original plan was to have a blog post once a week with the research information I’d had to look up, but eventually I had to let that go in favor of just getting the next chapter written. I do intend to fix that.
In fact, after Persona has been properly edited and I can release it as a full book, I thought I’d go ahead and make a “Fact vs. Fiction” edition that will take the chapter by chapter research I’ve done and put it down as a sort of weird appendix thingy.
So! In reviewing the last five months I can say that I truly enjoyed this process. I’ll probably do it again in the future — after I graduate and preferably with an already completed novel. (Persona was a re-write, and I ended up only using 2 of the original chapters I had written.)
Also, as a reader myself I can admit that I prefer to have my books all at once. And I know I’m not the only one because there were many people who let me know they wanted to wait until the whole thing was up before they read it. There are even more who want to wait for the physical copy to be available.
Which, I think, just goes to show you that readers come in all shapes and sizes. Some like the chapter a week approach because it fits into their schedule better. Some like to race through a book over their weekend. Some like to use their Kindles, Nooks, and iPad’s, while others want the feel of paper in their hands.
I know there are lots of debates about the publishing industry and what books are going to look like in the future, but I think many of these marketers and such are forgetting something very important; there is no one-size-fits-all box for readers to fit in. We are as varied and unique in our reading habits as we are in our personalities.
For everyone who read Persona on a weekly basis — I uber loves you all! Thank you for sticking with the story for so long!
For everyone who is now reading it on their digital devices — I uber loves you all! I hope you enjoy Megan’s story and hope to hear from you. (Here is the link, just in case you need it — Persona.)
For everyone who is waiting for the physical copies — I uber loves you all! I promise I’ll work hard to polish the manuscript and get it to you soon.
Now, I’m going to run off and keep plugging away at my NaNoWriMo project. With any luck, I’ll actually win this year!
AJMaguire 