I published my first book ‘Through the Fig Tree’ back in 2016. I think it’s a good story, I’ve had people who have loved it and been super keen to pick up the sequel when they’ve seen me at events, so I’ve been happy with it and I’ve been happy with the sequel. However, I know it could be better.
I probably rushed the writing as I was desperate to release the book, I wanted to have it so I could launch my author career and step away from the job I was in. I wasn’t doing it for the right reasons and my expectations weren’t realistic.
In about 2018, I spent some time working closely with someone who straight up told me that if it wasn’t good enough, I should fix it, but I wasn’t ready then. One reason for this was because I had ordered 300 copies of the book in my first print run, and I didn’t want to have to bin them.
Looking back now, I’m glad that I didn’t rework it then. In the last six years, I have grown and learnt a lot (partly because I’m now an editor as my side hustle), I have a lot more to add to my stories and more skills to apply.
So if people loved it, why does it need to be rewritten? One reason is that I know a lot more about punctuation now than I did before and the main thing I may end up correcting is a metric tonne of misplaced commas. That aside, I wrote the first book from the POV of two characters, and then I added the POV of a third character halfway through the second book and kind of left her story hanging. I have slowly realised that I the series will be more marketable if book one is about one couple and book two is about this third character and a love interest. Then I could add a third book about another couple to make the books more like a traditional romance series, but one that’s heavier on the fantasy than the steam (I’m not keen on writing steam). And then I spitballed some new titles and it seems the series now needs to have four books to make the titles work.
When all is said and done, I was proud of my book when I published it, but over time, I have learnt more and I’m not as proud of it anymore. I’m looking forward to having a book that I will once again be proud of, without being ashamed of what I wrote and released in 2016. After all, my motto is:
Do the best you can until you know better, then do better.
Comments