It feels a bit like giving birth . . .

. . . although not in the physical sense - more of a mental and intellectual one.  I sent out the penultimate edition of my first military science-fiction manuscript to several beta readers this evening.  I hope they'll provide feedback by the end of the month, at which time I'll send out the second manuscript (which is almost ready to go) while I go through their comments and make final adjustments to the first one.  I hope to have both available on Amazon and, possibly, Kobo within a few months, first as e-books and then, if the demand is there, as paperbacks.

It's a funny feeling.  I've been trying to learn the craft of fiction writing for almost eight years now, since well before I began this blog ago in January 2008.  My first efforts were dire, but I kept on plugging away at it.  I must have written the best part of two million words since I started, in an effort to master the art of fiction writing . . . and I still don't know whether I've succeeded.  I guess I won't know until I try to sell my work, and then the market will deliver its own verdict!

I've been published in book and article form in several non-fiction fields, and of course here on this blog, so I know I can do non-fiction writing reasonably well.  Whether or not I've got what it takes to be a fiction author as well remains to be seen.  I guess my beta readers will be the penultimate judge of that!  If they all hate it, it's not too late to scrap the whole idea and go back to writing non-fiction exclusively.  If they do like it . . . who knows?

Peter