I finished my first draft... Now what?

Most writers I know have trouble putting words to the page. Or worse, they second-guess everything they write so that perfection becomes the death of good enough for a first draft. Neither of those was my problem. My problem was sleep...

It took less than six months from my first inclination to write a romance fantasy novel to writing "The End" on my first full draft. My ADHD hyperfixation helped immensely. I stopped watching TV, playing video games, and even hanging out with my husband after our daughter went to bed. I was lucky if I was getting five to six consecutive hours of sleep each night. Most days, I was exhausted, distracted, and completely detached from my responsibilities.

But it was the first time in almost a year that I was working on a project that fully engaged me and ticked all my boxes. Creative expression, check; research into random interesting topics, check; trackable progress and milestones, check; built-in captive audience, double check (once I recruited Nathan and my Aunt Fabby into being my readers). Best of all, because I was fulfilled creatively, I was reengaging at work, my daughter and I were connecting and getting along better than we had in months, and as for Nathan and I... let's just say my book wasn't the only reason I wasn't sleeping. Seriously, writing a romantasy novel... best marital aid EVER.

So, on June 28th, I finished writing my last chapter and sent it off to my Book Coach, Katie. Really, she is more of a Book Mom or Book Doula. Whatever she is, she's amazing! I felt like I had given birth to a perfectly imperfect baby and we began editing.

Fuck I hate editing.

I should clarify.

I love revising and reworking... making a chapter really hit the mark. Adding tension or conflict to make a better reading experience. Awesome. Adding more detail to give two characters more distinct voices and personality. Right on! Hell, I got two-thirds of the way through my first draft when Katie told me we would need to add more action in the first ten chapters, so what did I do? Chucked the whole thing and rewrote it... yup, in that initial six months. Don't worry, I didn't [select all] [delet]; I just copied it all to my notes, thinking I would pick and choose pieces and interweave them with the new plot points.

NOPE.

I totally rewrote it and loved every minute of it.

But editing—going through and fixing punctuation, correcting tense, and finding spelling errors—I LOATH editing with a passion. I'm blaming the ADHD—not enough dopamine hits in editing. Thank the goddesses for Katie. She got me through our first round of edits, and now we are in revision once again. Whoo-hoo!

However... Now that edits are done and I'm polishing up my lovely little turd nugget, I'm left with the horrifying question...

NOW WHAT?

Katie had me write blurbs and a synopsis, draft a query letter, and really refine my first thirty pages. But that means it's time to start putting my work out there. I don't have the executive functioning skills, life skills, marketing skills, or business skills to self-publish and promote, so traditional publishing seems right for me.

So what now?

Now, I send query letter after query letter to literary agents, trying to convince someone to take a chance on me. I want to find someone who gets as excited about my story, characters, and world as I am. I want to find someone I can see myself working with long-term because this is NOT a one-and-done deal.

My first round of queries is out, and about half have already replied with "polite declines." One gave some much-appreciated feedback about my synopsis and pitch, so at least I have something to work on. But I'm still left with my original question.

Now what?

Now, we wait.

I hate waiting, almost as much as I hate editing.