It was on August 29 of last year that I finished a full first draft of my novel, then called The Hyphenates of Jackson County. At the time, I anticipated taking another 6-8 months to go through edits and arrive at a refined, fully-edited version of the novel. Maybe declaring Mission Accomplished! was a bit premature, as edits have taken nearly a full year instead, complete with a change in title to The Uninitiated. Overall, the process, starting at my beginning research, took three and half years to arrive at this point. Still, done is done. I finished putting in the final changes on Tuesday this week, and started the process of finding a new agent for the book this afternoon, querying my top four choices.

I ended up doing two more revisions after I felt the book was done, trying to put it under as much pressure as possible before sending it out, which will hopefully pay off. My dedicated panel of readers and conversants–Amber, Bill, Devin, Jenn, Marta, Nicole, and Shannon, em for moral support, the Lee Martin workshop at the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference, various others who happened to inquire after the status of the book–offered some great feedback. Thanks be to them!

Wish me luck and strength.