You write a novel lickety-split
the words pour out upon the page
the word count rising like a fountain
scenes fill chapters – chapters parts
That’s when the fun starts
What you have is just a first draft
send it to an agent, they would just laugh
assuming you even made it off the slush pile
rejection letters bring you down for a while
but you must pick yourself up
dust off your writing tool of choice
and launch your second, third and even fourth draft
polishing your bon mots, refine your voice,
flesh out your characters, channel your craft
That’s when the fun starts
Recruit a critique buddy
bully your friends and family into reading
confess to your partner you fear it needs a professional
count your pennies into tottering piles
it’s unlikely they will reach an editor ceiling
What the Dickens! Release your Kraken in blog-size bites
fret not at savage comments
don’t get into fights
enough opinions to make your head spin
That’s when the fun begins
At last your manuscript is done
but you must face one last and monumental question
to publish yourself or on great houses wait
or look for small and independent publishers
but are you sufficiently niche, do you fit a genre
and if you forge heroically through this labyrinth
That’s where the fun starts
Editors and graphic artists are but a few
wait till the sensitivity readers
get their hooks in you
blurbs written by the great and good
all these hurdles you should reckon
to jump and clear if write you would
and getting published…
That’s when the fun starts
Interviews and promotional tours
signing your book so much it bores
and after many hotels bland
your royalties pay for holiday sands
but just as you lie back sipping a drink
your editor ringtone and phone start to blink
No rest for the weary – up and at ‘em dearie
Success means your public seek for seconds
strike while the iron is hot she reckons
You face a blank screen…
That’s when the fun starts
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in OpenLinkNight invtes us to submit a poem of our choice! This poem, tongue in cheek, is not from personal experience but pure wishful thinking, and were it to come true, it would be, as somebody once said “A lovely problem to have…”