First Post!

Everything for the Ten Sigma eBook and paperback are up on Amazon, ready to be self-published with the click of the submit button.
Since there’s only one time you can hit the button to submit your first novel, I figured I’d spend a few minutes creating a wordy stream-of-consciousness post about the mixture of feelings I’m having at this moment.
Amazingly, nothing profound is bubbling. While there’s a twinge of nervousness and a splash of curiosity, most of my emotions are confined to just a sense of tiredness from the last-minute scramble to get everything done from the cover to the editing, the copyrights and ISBNs, and to fixing the dratted midpoint.
It’s been a long journey. Ten Sigma isn’t my first novel. Nor sadly, my second. And it’s not even in my preferred 3rd person POV past tense narration.
Ten Sigma is my third try in creating a story from one of the many ideas floating in my head. I wrote it in the first person present tense because for me at least, it’s the simplest form of narration and where my talent level (at this point) resides for telling a good story.
The other two books I’ve written will need to wait until my writing rises to the level that would be worthy of their stories.
Not to say I’m not proud of Ten Sigma. I am. It’s good enough and unique enough I’m confident in sending it into the universe to be loved or ignored or, most likely, somewhere in between.
The one thing I’d add is that finishing any novel is no easy task. And writing a competent one is even harder because there are so many skills required besides that of actually writing good prose. If this novel has success, I’ll go into more detail about the different aspects required to create a good novel.
Now’s the time to give a shout out to all the people who have read the various incarnations of this work. My sister Vivian and my critique partner Dibz have both read this more than twice. Also, my other beta readers who have provided feedback that has enabled me to find places to improve. It’s funny, but even an innocuous “I think you can do better with this,” can lead to great things.
And surprisingly every bit of feedback has led to the novel getting longer. What was a 99k word rough draft is now clocking in at slightly over 121k. Most people claim that 10% should be cut from the rough draft to the final draft. I guess that makes me a serial underwriter. Sigh.
Aside from providing valuable feedback, these people also comprise the audience that’s not so breathlessly waiting for this book to be released. Another sigh. First-time authors face many issues.
Relating back to the beginning of this stream of words, I’d guess my curiosity and nervousness stem from the reception Ten Sigma will receive, which probably is a pretty common feeling amongst new authors.
Will the first review be a 5-star or a 1-star? In a masochistic way, I won’t really be successful until I get that first 1-star review because it means I’ve reached a large enough audience to include people who don’t want to like the book. I’m sure the book is good enough that the core sci-fi military audience will find it acceptable (and hopefully more than that).
And regardless of the consequences, it will be a relief to publish Ten Sigma and accept the new challenges on the other side of the threshold.
Okay, enough blathering.
It’s time to take the next step in this journey. And the good thing is that if anyone cares about this posting, well then the book at least has made some impact.
On to press that button and then to the sequels…