So Now What?

In Which Rebeca Writes About an Aha Moment

It’s been several months since I signed up for this Substack account and during that time, I pondered what the hell I would write about? Would it be about history? Nope. Heather Cox Richardson has cornered that area. Economics? Yikes, no. Why when there’s Paul Krugman wonking out (and referencing Monty Python)? Michael Cohen? As much as I hate Trump and his policies, Michael has more reason to publicly kvetch about him than I do.

So then I thought maybe I can write about some of the books I’ve been reading and find parallels to what is happening now in the U.S. Nah. That’s been done. So I mulled it over and then that Aha! moment came to me. I’ll write about my novel.

You see, I’ve been working on this monster novel that refuses to end because I like my characters so much that I don’t want to say goodbye to them just yet. I write more scenes, I add more characters, and, well…let’s say I’m reaching 200,000 words. Simply put, it’s a really long book. And this is Book One of three books!

Officially, it’s finished. It has all the essential elements: beginning, middle, and end. But it needs polishing. Actually, a lot of polishing. Remember, it’s almost 200,000 words long. And because it’s taken me so long to write and soon to be polished—which will take its share of time—I decided to take a bit of a short cut to bring it out into the world. For those of you not familiar with the traditional publishing process, it’s a long and time consuming process that can take about one to three years from the moment when an acquisitions editor decides to move forward with the book to seeing that actual hardcover copy of your masterpiece. The alternative to speeding up the process is self-publishing, which can take three to six months to have a copy of the book in your hands.

I won’t get into all the details of the process for both traditional publishing and self-publishing, but what could be a shorter time period and have readers coming back for more of my characters’ adventures? Serialization. If Chas. Dickens and Stephen King serialized their books, so why not me?

Serialized chapters will be behind the paywall—I’m still deciding the subscription price point—but I thought, and I suppose this is having my cake and eating it too—that I would add commentary of the books I read for research as well as my own thoughts of why I wrote what I wrote. Think of it like William Goldman's asides in The Princess Bride—those moments where he steps out of the story of Buttercup and Wesley to share his thoughts with readers. (And if you want to learn how to write fiction, read that book.).

So that’s it for now. Oh, wait! What’s it about? I suppose I can’t leave you hanging. So I’ll borrow from William Goldman: it has beautiful and clever women, handsome and brave men, villains, New York City history, The Spanish Civil War, Spain, Russia, leftist politics, a mystery, spooks and spooks, betrayal, deception and chaos. Plus one smart terrier who is privy to many secrets. The title? Julius.