The Four Baristas: Double Shot

Aaaaand it's Another Note. YAAAaaayyy....cough

So. Quite when Double Shot morphed into my excuses blog, I'm not really sure, but hey—we seem to have arrived. At least the weather's nice. Well, it is here. But here is Queensland, Australia, so you know that's pretty much a given.

I'm not going to go on about jetpacks (other than to observe that if they arrive before this book is done, boy, is my face going to be red—but then, on the other hand, we will have jetpacks, so, you know, swings and roundabouts). I'm not quite sure what I'm going to go on about (which, let's face it, has never stopped me in the past) other than to perhaps state the obvious, not to say self-evident, fact that no new chapters of Double Shot have been forthcoming for quite some time now.

For that matter, no new chapters of anything have been forthcoming for quite some time now.

Which is not to say I have been idle. In fact, just the opposite. As I think I've mentioned in a previous note (they all kind of blend together, these days) I had to edit the original Four Baristas prior to it being published, which was the original reason for the most recent pause in Double Shot updates. But, of course, only the latest in a whole series of reasons for a whole series of pauses. Let's face it, there's been a few of 'em (pauses, not reasons. Although, I guess I wouldn't have paused without a reason, so logically it stands to reason there's been quite a few reasons, too. Sound reasonable? Hmm).

Anyway, the point is, I did some editing. And then I got a few nibbles from publishers on other titles (nothing more than nibbles as yet), took a look at said titles and realised they needed editing too. Like, a lot. A great big, enormous lot. So I edited them. A lot. And then I got some feedback on stuff and decided I'd better work on that for a bit, too. So I did.  And I am. Still.

Basically, I've ventured down this strange editing/querying/submitting wormhole and have yet to emerge. After a pretty furious four years of writing, which produced four and a half books, plus a bunch of other bits and pieces, I kind of found myself wondering where I was going with it all. Or if, indeed, I was going anywhere at all. Or even whether I wanted to go anywhere.

I mean, when I started out, what I primarily wanted to achieve was writing a book. Thought it was pretty unlikely I'd ever get there, but figured, hey—nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I got there. Four times. Huzzah. Happy days.

And in the end, if that's all I end up achieving in my authorial (I'm a little surprised to find that's actually a word, but Wattpad isn't red-squiggly-lining it, so it must be) career, well then, I'm pretty much okay with that. Mission accomplished.

Only, of course, once you've got a completed book or two under your belt (or preferably on your bookshelf, which is way more comfortable) all the associated authorial (just checking) paraphernalia and possibilities that go along with that start to circulate in your head. Possibilities such as the possibility of getting published.

Yeah, I know 4BA is getting published, and that's awesome, but the thing is, it hasn't happened yet. And the little cynic in me will only shut up once it does happen and I'm holding a copy of that sucker in my hands. In the meantime, I have three other poor, neglected books to wave at publishers in the forlorn and minuscule hope of getting them signed to publishing deals I can not believe in.

So I've been doing a bit of that. A lot of editing and a bit of submitting. I've made a start on the requisite list of rejections any self-respecting wannabe author needs on their CV. I've put on my big-boy pants and stepped outside the safe and cosy confines of the Wattpad world.

I will get back to Double Shot, I promise. When I return from my time in the wilds of the big, bad publishing world, bruised and battered and chastened, I will at last give the baristas (and you guys) an end to the story. Hell, I may even chuck in a middle.

When will this be? I don't know, exactly. But it won't be too far away. After all, we can't have those smug jetpack people one-upping us, can we?