It’s a lovely bit of news for any writer. My novel has been accepted! Bitingduck Press has accepted my YA novel, Coup de Grace, Spring 2015.

For those of you who follow twitter and other accounts, you’ll know I was working on a book this Winter/Spring. The publisher had taken a look at a few ideas I had, and picked an idea they liked. I set to work putting the story together.

I attempted a new approach. A friend of mine, Randy, told me that he’s a thorough plotter, that the text is actually the very last thing he did, like painting a house after it’s built. I spent quite a bit more time plotting the story out, which helped. I wrote most of the story based on the plot, and then forsook the plot entirely and tuned the story up. It may have worked. I’m not sure.

The publisher seemed to think the story worked reasonably well. This does not mean that we won’t be editing the story or rewriting large bits of it. I haven’t seen the first round of edits yet. But it does mean that the gist of the story, its characters and storyline are useable. It’s a starting point.

This is what signing means: the story’s decent, and the publisher and writer are agreeing to work through the editorial process together. The next year  and a bit will involve the editorial process. The process won’t be easy always, but it will make the story much, much better.