TalysMana started out to be one thing—a mother-daughter collaboration, with me writing a story and my daughter creating jewelry and talismans from it.
But my daughter discovered part way through that she liked writing better than making jewelry, and that writing paid better, too. So she’s now a full-time writer, and TalysMana has to morph into something new.
TalysMana will become the only first draft of a novel of mine anyone is going to get to see—ever—because I have a hard-and-fast rule than not even editors or agents (*or my first reader) get to see my first drafts.
And it is also becoming the novel I’ll revise for the How To Revise Your Novel Walkthrough.
Dan Allen, my website developer, software engineer, and site admin, is building the back-end software that will run this for me.
When the software is done, you’ll be able to log in and read a new chapter of the story each week.
When I finish the book, writers will then be able to join me in an expanded version of How To Revise Your Novel as I demonstrate how I turn this first draft into a completed book.
And once TalysMana is revised, edited, typeset, and in print, you’ll find links here to purchase the finished novel in your format of choice.
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*Traditionally, first readers get to see first draft. I’m really damn finicky, though, and my first reader gets to see the semi-first-draft version, which is what I get after I’ve done one print out, bug hunt, and clean up. TalysMana is real, genuine, raw, un-cleaned-up first draft. What the words actually look like when they pour from my brain through my fingertips onto the page.
The fact that this is nothing like what they look like when I’ve revised is the entire point of this project. It gives readers a chance to see how much things change in a book, and to get a feel for the real process of creating one.