Manuscript Finished, But…

This morning I am feeling… a bit overwhelmed, a little down, somewhat scared… I’ve come to the not fun part.

The main manuscript is finished. I completed it (except for the epilogue, tables of content, and title) on Tuesday. Yesterday I did another read-through and made a couple corrections. The major portion is done. I’m struggling with the epilogue and what would be written on the back cover to capture readers’ attention. I’m still unsure about the title. And I am feeling anxious about the next step of taking all the Word docs and putting them in InCopy.

Epilogue, the ending, the conclusion should be fairly easy, but my mind is either blank or all over the place. So much went on this last year with the move and all. The table of contents is just listing the chapter and also making a list of photos (which I still need to decide which to use). The title – from the first I was thinking “Not Too Cold for Alligators” because I saw many more alligators on this trip than the one in 2013 – but is this title too close to the last book “Too Cold for Alligators?” This isn’t really a sequel and while similar, it’s a totally different book.

Windows freezes up if documents get too long, so each chapter was written as a separate document. Now, it’s time to actually put it all together in one full manuscript. I used Open Office for “Too Cold for Alligators,” but with the acquisition of Adobe Creative Cloud, I have more options. I’m just so… apprehensive about learning these new programs, starting with InCopy and Lightroom. 

The actual writing is the easy, fun part for me. Now it’s time for the technical aspects of putting the book together and that’s what spins my head around. I can’t even put my mind on it at this moment, but I am already anxious to move on to another book (the actual traveling and writing which I enjoy immensely), but I have to get this one done first.

I’m almost tempted to say, I wrote it, now move on to the next. I can’t do that, though. I have to publish. After all, that’s the intent of writing a book. I. Have. To. Publish.