Thank you to everyone who commented on my prologue. It has been interesting, satisfying, eye-opening, and thoroughly marvelous. The experience made my goal of publishing this month or at least by May, a need. However, I've talked with my longest-enduring reader and her expectation of when the novel will be polished enough to publish is August.
OMG.
I've been so excited and ready but then, as people intimate with my novel ask questions, or as I revise a paragraph here or there, I've become aware that the final chapter is not quite right.
Do I enthusiastically rush to meet my goal or do I wisely resist as I polish and polish before I ever publish?
My enthusiastic self feels like a seven year old who can't wait for summer break. Time is my enemy and everything is about now. My wise self is the thirty-seven year old woman I've become cautioning me to respect the story, the characters, my hard-work, and above all, my readers.
And nestled in between is a worry that I'll never stop polishing; that I'll post-pone out of fear. I want a deadline.
I've asked my reader for a compromise--later than my desire but earlier than August. We'll hope for the best, but in the mean time (and it is mean because my seven year old self is whining, but why?), I will post my first chapter.
I have another plan brewing in my noggin, but I have to let it simmer.
