I am writing a novel.
It's so much fun to say that! My book is titled First Act of War and it is the first of hopefully many in a series. It is an epic fantasy novel and I've tried to do some things differently than many of the great fantasy writers that I've enjoyed recently. The novel is over 170k words long and I am currently through 4 rounds of revisions.
Earlier this month I sent the book out to alpha readers. These are the people that will read the book, and (I hope) give me critical feedback. My readers are a smattering of family, friends and acquaintences, all of whom are avid readers or writers, and not all read fantasy regularly.
The reviews and criticism are starting to trickle in. It's not the easiest thing to listen to someone dissect your story, or a character, or a particular part of your writing style, but it's very necessary if you want to improve as a writer.
Two major points so far are some inconsistencies in character motivation and a fairly significant plot hole at the end. Actually, it's less a hole and more a loose end that should have had a big pay-off. Regardless, they're both excellent thoughts provided by excellent readers. As more readers finish and tell me what they think, I'm sure my to-do list for revision 5 will be quite long. But my book will be much better for it.
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