My Writing Journey – Ritu Bhathal

Today, in a(nother) Facebook group I am a member of, a question was asked.

Are you a planner or a pantser?

Now, I have always laughingly referred to myself as a Plantser – a mixture of the two.

I was asked what I plan, and where I pants, and I came up with this analogy of my Literary SatNav.

Let me explain.

I have a basic idea of where I want the story to go, who will be present at the start and how I want it to end.

Then the characters are given the destination (aka the end)… with key places I want them to visit on their way.

They are like my Literary Satnavs. They take me to my conclusion in their own way.

It’s like a roadtrip with imaginary friends.

Sometimes I have to stop the writer car, let the engine idle, while I reprogram the route, because we’ve gone wildly off the map, but most of the time, it works.

We even pick up hitchhikers along the way, in the form of new characters who I didn’t even know existed! (Note to younger readers – I am not advocating picking up hitch hikers in reality, but extra characters, that’s a different matter.)

There are the key points we’ll stop at, as I specified when I originally gave the characters the basic travel plan, to savour the scenery, but more often than not, we carry on down the road to our HEA – our Happily Ever After.

It worked for me with Marriage Unarranged.

Here’s hoping they are as good at guiding me and my story this time too!

What? You haven’t read it, yet? Well, what are you waiting for?

Head on over to Amazon to download or order your copy using this link – http://getbook.at/MarriageUnarranged

Check out the Goodreads reviews here!

Credit to Photo by Jessica Lewis. Produced by Canva.

Yup, you guessed it. I heard back from the publishers.

And it wasn’t quite the positive response I had hoped for.

They loved the idea… but felt it wasn’t quite the story concept for them.

No, I’m not crying.

Why?

Because there’s that age old adage: Every cloud has a silver lining.

Meaning you can find a positive in anything, even the negative, and that is the way I live my life. I’ve taken plenty of knocks in my life, personally and professionally, and I have always found something to feel good about in each situation. The writing game is no different.

Previous to this submission, I submitted to agents, and the ones who read what I had sent were all extremely positive, but not able to offer representation for various reasons. One was really keen but wanted more polish on my then manuscript before considering representation. This was one response I had.

“The world needs your story.”
Agent Feedback

So, it can’t be all bad, can it? But what can I do, going forward?

I know my story isn’t unworthy. The feedback from my beta readers has already told me that. I have a few more tweaks to do, as suggested by a couple of them, which I didn’t implement after submitting to the publisher, as I thought I would let the story rest, whilst they were pondering.

The next decision to make is what I want to do next, publishing wise. Do I want to try submitting to another set of agents/publishers? Or is it time to take that bold Indie step?

I have a list of publishers and agents I could submit to.

But I am much further along the Indie process than I thought, really. I have a prospective cover already. I have the means to format my book. I already have a host of bloggers willing to help promote when the time is right.

One thing I haven’d done is set up a newsletter and built a mailing list, because at this stage, I don’t know what I could send out regularly, to subscribers that would even interest them!

I just need the gumption to do it.

What do you think?

Should I take the plunge and go it alone (with all of you for support, obviously!) or do I try and submit again, chasing the traditionally published dream?