THE LAST TRIMESTER:
March 30, 2010: The Making ‘Baby Grand’ blog is born as a way to chronicle the writing process and share my trials and tribulations as a first-time novelist as I finish the writing of this book. Or maybe as a creative way to procrastinate. Not sure.
April 1 to July 31, 2010: Completing of manuscript. Screaming frogs. Hungry children. Neglected husband. Anguish, misery, laughter, exaltation, depending on the day.
August 1 to 9, 2010: Rereading/revising of Baby Grand. Anguish, misery, laughter, exaltation, depending on the day.
BIRTH:
August 10, 2010: Draft of novel delivered to agent. Sudden urge to smoke cigar.
AFTERBIRTH:
August 11, 2010: Beginning of long vacation.
August 19, 2010: Back from vaca. Recharged. Refreshed. And the waiting begins…
October 26, 2010: Conference call with agent. Received very positive feedback (yippee!) and discussed some minor revisions. Beyond excited. Set a Revised Draft deadline of Wednesday, November 24 changed to Tuesday, November 30 and then Monday, December 6 and finally Monday, December 13, 2010. (Yes, revisions took longer than expected — once I was in there again, I just kept fixing!)
December 14 to 21, 2010: Experiencing serious Post Book Depression. (If it weren’t for the Christmas frenzy, it probably would have lasted longer.) As much as I felt exhilaration and elation upon finishing revisions, I miss the writing. Sometimes terribly.
January 24, 2011: Conference call with agent. Almost there! Another round of revisions to be completed by Monday, February 7, 2011. A week and a half. Gulp.
January 27, 2011: Two days have passed and manuscript has remained unopened as procrastination again rears its ugly head and I am convinced that I have forgotten how to write. On the bright side, my house has never looked so clean.
February 7, 2011: Somehow, some way, I met my deadline. (Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are.) Now, we wait…
May 17, 2011: Looks like I’ll be plunging back into the manuscript one last time to finetune a few things with my main character, Jamie Carter. My agent said to finish when I can. Oh, boy… this may be a while.
September 28, 2011: Well, after my “summer of home improvement” — as opposed to last year’s “summer of self-improvement” — curtailed my plans to edit, edit, edit all summer, coupled with lots of freelance work (gotta pay for the home improvement, right?), I just zapped off to my agent what I hope is the new and improved — and longer — manuscript for Baby Grand. And now more waiting, but I don’t mind. I’m exhausted…
March 22, 2012: Well, apparently, the waiting got to me. :) I’ve decided to publish Baby Grand as an eBook later this spring and also to make the novel available as a print-on-demand paperback.
April 19, 2012: Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to reveal the cover for Baby Grand.
April 26, 2012: Tired of amateurish-looking self-portraits posing as head shots, I finally invested in a professional head shot once and for all. The wonderful Mark Bennington of Bennington Headshots took this Celebrity Apprentice shot, as my 14-year-old son likes to call it, and Mark could not have been more wonderful to work with.
This is so impressive! I’m in the process of writing a novel, and also sharing my progress, but your timeline puts my efforts to shame, girl! Wow. Congratulations!