I’ve finally released the sequel to Ocean Lost, Caverns Found.

On Feb 24, 2011 I started this book, I finished it four years later. I spent the last six months moving to Texas, unpacking and procrastinating editing.

There’s something very emotional about writing a book and prepping it for publication. I love sharing my books with other people, but there’s a lot of fear involved too. I feel like Shalise and the writing is my dragon. I want to be on the other end of the warm reception without going through the process in the middle.

Editing is a very different process from writing. It uses new skills and different parts of the brain. It’s like being on a safari hunt for the perfect word. I read a sentence and see that the words don’t work right; that something needs to be shifted to better express the feeling I wish to convey. Editing is my monster within, but once I’ve made the transformation from creator to critiquer(yes it should be a word) it’s not so terrible.

I read once that most people will forgive a bad first book because you are expected to have mistakes your first time through, but that if you have a bad second book, they won’t read you again. I love Caverns Found. In some ways it surprises me. One of the difficulties in editing lay in that I kept finding myself getting caught in the story. I noticed that in my readers too. After about page fifty there were a lot less corrections or maybe I was a better writer by then.

Anyhow here’s to getting Caverns Found‘s sequel done in less than a year. Wish me luck.

Bookmarks to the first five commenters. Email me your address if you want one.