Draft to Debut Diaries
Come dream chasing with me
Welcome to my new, and first ever, series on Substack. In these updates, articles, posts, letters dear diary moments you can expect to find the wows and woes of my endeavours to bring (as the name suggests) my draft to a published book.
As much a record for myself as anyone else but hopefully, this might interest you if you too are in a similar position or simply curious as to how a rough draft ever becomes a historical romance novel. Frankly, I have no idea what I am doing beyond chasing a dream.
Where I'm at....
I am in the process of taking Draft 5 to Draft 6, however there have been way more than 5 iterations of this WIP.
I have been working on it for nearly 6 years and there have been ALOT of Draft Zeros where I cut some of my eye teeth (I still have many more to cut). It started out as a standalone idea but by the time I had met all the side characters and they had told me all their issues, hopes and dreams, I found myself wrestling a four book series with a bonus companion Book 5 to follow. Technically, they are all companions. As with lots of Historical Romance series, you will be able to read each book separately, but the twists of books 3 and 4 will land better if you have read books 1 and 2 first.
You might be wondering, as Book 1 has taken me six years already, why I would continue to thrash what may well be a dead horse...and to be honest I ask myself this frequently too, but the world in my head and the characters do not leave me alone. If I was to shelve Book 1 then the whole series would die with it. And, in a similar style to Julia Quinn, Sarah MacLean, Lisa Kleypas, Stephanie Laurens etc, I have ideas of other series (and have already written bits of them) that all exist in the same world with my main characters from this series making cameos or side characters becoming main characters.
Thus, I am fully committed to bringing Book 1 into the world.
It has yet to have a perfectly worded one sentence hook, but it is inspired by Austen, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier, These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer and Never Judge A Lady By Her Cover by Sarah MacLean... make of that what you will for now.
Hooky sentence… buffering.
How its going... Back to the business of Draft 5 becoming Draft 6.
I have learned through many rereads that I fail spectacularly at not editing as I go so, last reread I embraced this with mixed results. I edited the draft as I went, made comments on my WIP for major changes and reached 'The End' to discover that I had completely forgotten how this iteration actually ended.
Which probably seems like madness, how could I possibly forget how my own book ends, but the ending is my almost continual hiccup with Book 1. From drafts one to three the ending felt boring and heavy, now I have shed the boring heaviness but now I wrestle with the possibly/probably convoluted aspect of the ending and I worry if anyone pokes too hard they will open up a gaping plothole.
For now, I am leaving the ending as it is (check back for Draft 7 🙈) and concentrating on amending two plotlines which I hope will help with convolution(?) (and the fact I had forgotten the ending), I will also be finishing the last of the unwritten/half written chapters, fixing all the myriad inconsistancies I found in my read through and making sure the research I have done has actually made it onto the page.
If the plot changes have tightened the ending, then I hope next draft, I can dig into character, internal conflict and setting which I hope will then bring me to line edits. And then the terror of finally getting other people’s eyes on my story.
If my ending doesn't hold... back to the plot mxrdxr board.
As you can probably tell, getting to the end of my revison will take multiple passes and I am hoping to get them done before my son breaks up for holidays at the end of June. This is a pretty big ask but it's necessary for myself, for my family and for my WILD goals. So keep all your fingers crossed life doesn't life too hard!
We won't discuss the prequel novella I found myself pondering last night... and ask that none of the main characters start jabbering away before the end of June!
Where I'm heading...
My intention has always been to self publish this series and given the state of affairs in the publishing world regarding AI and Historical Romance, I am doubly sure that, for now, it is the right path for me.
And just to clear it up now, it has been a human writing and rewriting over the past six years, not an exceptionally slow robot. I will never use AI to write my books. It has very much been a labour of love and continues to be so.
With that being said, my hope is that by the end of this year, Book 1 will be ready to publish and will be available to purchase in January 2027. The realities of that being possible or even probable... *throws up hands*… I have no idea. But I guess thats what this is about - discovering the path together.
Alongside the writing, revising, researching, craft learning there is also the business side of bringing my story into the world. This week, I am intending to set aside some time and actually try to create at least the skeleton of a business plan, and put all my marketing ideas down on paper to at least start to see the path through all the noise of KDP, D2D, social media, websites etc etc. I guess we will see if I can manage to drag myself away from my WIP long enough to actually do it.
I intend to be as transparent as possible in this series so... welcome to the ride! I hope it has a happy ending but unlike my Historical Romances, there's no guarantee.
If you would like to stick around to see the journey from draft to debut, don't forget to hit subscribe.
I'll check back in next month with another update.
Alice xo
This is so exciting!