The path to publication (1g)

Next, I started doing courses. I found the ones offered through UWA Extension to be worthwhile. I met my copyeditor at one of these day courses. I did a short creative writing course through Tuart College. While very general, it did give us a weekly set of homework to aim to complete, which helped get me writing. I also realised how weird it can be to hear someone read their work, especially if the subject matter is a bit unusual. One student was working on a crime thriller, but when she read the excerpt about the crime, set out in painstaking and graphic detail, we couldn't help but look at her and wonder what part of her that came from. I wrote whenever I was in the mood, and somehow once I got going, I was always in the mood. The more I wrote, the more I wrote. Then, within 8 months of sucking up my pride and returning to that writing group I'd found, I realised that I had completed my first draft. The next step was to get some reader feedback. This time I was prepared to be told things I might not like, as I was ready for it. I was playing the long game now. I didn't need it to be perfect, I needed to work out how to make it better. Changing my focus was crucial. My writing group hostess was fantastic. We wrote in entirely opposite genres, mine was memoir in a conversational style; her's was speculative historical fiction. Yet she took my 300 plus pages of A4 printouts, and went off and read every page. Better still, she wrote comments on every page. I used her feedback to improve my draft. It was time to polish, and time to learn. I was so excited to be at this stage. It seemed like my goal was in sight. However, what I didn't realise was that it would be another two years before I had my book published, and it would be a rocky road ahead.