I Finished the Novel - Now What?

I finished my novel, Falling From the Moon, in June and September is almost a memory. In June and July I gave copies of the book to a few trusted friends to read, hoping to get some feedback. I've been working on the novel for years and years and years and no one had read the entire book cover to cover and I definitely wanted to clean up the typos, grammar issues and matters of choreography before trying to show it to someone who might actually want to publish it.

Yes, that is the goal. As much as I was compelled to keep writing the book even when I was sick of it and wanted to escape from its clutch, I always knew that someday I would try to get it published.

So I'm waiting on my friends, hint hint, to return their copies with lots of pen marks on the page. I've registered for the La Jolla Writers Conference in November and my deadline to have my synopsis and first twelve pages in their post office box is October 1st - so I better get hustling.

I've been trapped in synopsis hell, learning how to be concise, cover the basic plots points and be a bit of a tease so I can leave prospective agents hungry for more. This conference asked for a one page synopsis and after slaving over it for days, I think I have a one page draft.

In the meantime, I'm reading the novel myself and scribbling all over the printed page so I guess my triumphant June post wasn't so climatic after all. But this last draft is mostly sentence changes and minor edits. I hope to be done with this verion by November 1st.

Wish me luck!