"Achtung! Minen!"

Lulu and I have finally agreed on the (current) finished draft of ‘Maranatha’, after waiting for their ISBN assignation to complete once again. I’m now happy to accept that the thing can be about as good as I can make it at this point in time – without spending any more months on the project. One thing I’ve just thought about would be the addition of the Fenriswulf logo on the front cover, a la Penguin. It would be a visual design element on the otherwise purely typographical layout, but it’s a bit late in the day to start fiddling with details. As any future changes will likely involve a completely redesigned cover anyway, and a new ISBN assigned as a result, I might as well leave it for that.

It’s also been a funny experience reading through the finished book in its printed form. Suddenly tiny little details which went previously unnoticed during the dozens of proof-readings jump out of the page at me. I find myself thinking, “Hm, that comma shouldn’t be there. I should really take out that word…and I could have used a better word there.” What seemed great as a bundle of typescript pages, or a scrolling Word file, has now committed itself to the same level of judgment as Waugh, Burgess, Hemingway, Eco, Joyce, Conrad or, er, Lovecraft (as I glance worriedly across the length of my bookshelf). I’m now expecting to share shelf space with the great and the good, the lucky, the horribly bad, the celebrity cooks and the ex-Big Brother House evictees. Comparisons are pointless, though, as all judgements are subjective, including mine – actually getting some judgments upon the work, good or bad, is now the next goal. And this is where the legwork comes in, the real effort, the potential for disenchantment. While the book remains unknown and unread, it’s easy to imagine anything. Suddenly the idea of it making contact with inscrutable and unbiased members of the professional trade raises the ante. This is the start of the make or break period, where I discover if I really have developed a hard enough skin to be able to take the rough with the smooth, and it’s all a bit daunting, if not intimidating. This is where I pull on my tin hat and begin to tiptoe gently through the minefield. And while it may all just blow up in my face and stop me in my tracks, it's the idea of what may lie beyond which makes it also very exciting. I’ve contacted a few bookstores already, and that excitement will soon be shared within this very page…