MathiasCavanaugh.com

Yesterday, something wonderful happened.  I completed the manuscript for Under the Darkened Moon.

It’s been a wonderful journey, considering that it is the first novel I have been able to completed in darn near twenty years of attempting to write a novel.  I’ve gone through a whole range of emotions from joy (at having done it), to sorrow (at realizing my characters, my children, are all grown up), to fear (at realizing that now the hard part begins as I search for an agent and publisher).

The whole experience of writing this story began last year on July 18th and has spanned, officially, 517 days (44,668,800 seconds) of my life. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve spent over 2,000 hours either directly working on this story or thinking about it.  That’s a lot of time.

I’ve had so many people who have been encouraging (when they needed to be) and brutally honest (when the situation required it):

John, Karen, Paul, Henry, Gale, Jimmy, Samuel, Lorne, Kip, Anna, Colin, Stephen, and Dawn (just to name a few), you guys/gals have been wonderful and encouraging.

But, as I said before, this is just the first step.  There is a whole new adventure for this story to take as it must now find someone who believes in it as much as I do and who is willing to help get it into print.  My stomach is in knots and now I turn to polishing me query letter and deciding who to send the it to first.  I have a list of literally hundreds of literary agents who deal with fantasy.  It is going to be a daunting task, one which will no doubt be filled with much rejection.  Such is the way of the world.

But here’s to that exciting new journey.  And here’s to the next project, whatever that may be.

Heywood Floyd: “What? What’s going to happen?”
Dave Bowman: “Something wonderful.”
Heywood Floyd: “What?”
Dave Bowman: “I understand how you feel. You see, it’s all very clear to me now. The whole thing. It’s wonderful.”
- 2010 The Year We Make Contact

Onwards!