{"id":232,"date":"2013-10-13T18:58:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T18:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chimneyrabbit.com\/?p=232"},"modified":"2013-10-13T18:58:06","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T18:58:06","slug":"when-done-is-not-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=232","title":{"rendered":"When done is not done"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Donne, the 17th century metaphysical poet, wrote in his poem A Hymn to God the Father<\/em>:<\/p>\n

When thou hast done, thou hast not done,<\/p>\n

For I have more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the poem he’s talking about the amount of flaws and sins he possesses – much like one of my manuscripts. When you’re writing a book, done never seems to mean done. Back in August of this year, I completed my latest novel, Tales of the Ancient Rabbits<\/em>. But just because it was finished didn’t mean it was done.<\/p>\n

I read over the manuscript to make sure it all hung together as a proper story. But that still wasn’t done.<\/p>\n

I completed a second draft, going through every word and making quite a few substantial changes. That still wasn’t done.<\/p>\n

Earlier today, I completed the final draft. Final draft, eh? Must be done now!<\/p>\n

Nope.<\/p>\n

Now I’ve got the manuscript in a suitable state, I can start to think about submitting it. Which means that the process is most certainly not<\/em> done. Most agents, publishers and competitions ask for a synopsis of the book: a short, usually one- or two-page document giving an outline of the entire book from beginning to end. When you’ve just finished a 37,000-word book, a single page of 500-700 words shouldn’t take long, should it? Ha! The synopsis is the hardest single page of the entire project. It’s taken me hours and hours to get the words down – then even longer to cut the document down to a single page.<\/p>\n

And I’m still not done.<\/p>\n

I need to prepare files containing sample chapters for submission to agents – most ask for three chapters\/10,000 words, so I’ve got a Word file containing the first three chapters that clocks in at 9,999 words according to Word’s word-count – I’ll admit I cheated slightly and chopped a few words out to make sure the submission wasn’t arbitrarily discarded for exceeding the 10,000-word limit that a lot of agents set. Then I produced a two-chapter variation of the same sample.<\/p>\n

Done? Not yet! I’m planning on entering the Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition<\/a> this year with Tales of the Ancient Rabbits, which has an addition requirement for entry: a chapter-by-chapter plot plan. Paradoxically, while this is longer than the synopsis (you’re allowed a couple of sentences per chapter) it was actually quicker to write than the synopsis.<\/p>\n

Done? Nope! I’ve still got to write a covering letter for the competition, and a covering email for my submission to an agent. Once I’ve done that<\/em>, and printed and packaged and posted and emailed my submissions, I’ll have finished. Sort of. What I’ll really<\/em> have done is started the whole submission process of sending my novel around agents to try to find a home for it.<\/p>\n

Done never really seems to mean done, does it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Donne, the 17th century metaphysical poet, wrote in his poem A Hymn to God the Father: When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more. In the poem he’s talking about the amount of flaws and sins he possesses – much like one of my manuscripts. When you’re writing a book,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p37h7H-3K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}