The Road to Publishing My First Novel

A long, long road ...

A little over eleven months ago, I began compiling a list of characters for my very first, full-length novel. I wrote my first short story when I was in grade one, I’ve written poems, songs, fairy tales, short stories, and screenplays all through high school. I’ve been writing fan-fiction for almost four years now, but I had never been able to stick with one story long enough to make it book-length.

Until now.

On December 31^st, 2010, shortly after 1:00 in the morning, I completed the first draft of my first novel, totaling in 67,759 words.

So, it only took me fifteen years, but here I am. Getting ready to publish my first novel. It’s exciting, intense, fun, fulfilling … and terrifying. I’d been putting off figuring out the best way to get my novel published, but as I’ve made my New Year’s Resolution to get it published, I can no longer procrastinate.

While the thrill of finally completing this novel was a high like no other, the journey down the publishing road is a daunting one. I can’t afford to self-publish, so I need to find a literary agent to pitch my novel to publishers - which I can’t afford to do, either. But, even if I could, there are supposedly only 30 literary agents in Canada, and most of them reside in Ontario. One of the closest ones, in British Columbia, probably won’t accept my novel, as it’s young-adult fiction, and they cater mostly towards non-fiction, and some children’s books. Certainly she might be the way to go when I try to publish my children’s book series, but for now, it doesn’t do me much good.

Sigh … but, I am nothing if not persistent. Yes, it will be hard. There will probably be lots of nail-biting and teeth-grinding, a fair amount of rejection letters, and lots of tears, but, eventually … I will be a published author.