A lot has been going on with The Unknowns and much of it is stuff I can’t go into specifics about but I made the decision to start looking for an agent about a month and a half ago and that process is moving along well! But it has made me have to review my goals with my book and change my timelines.
My orginal goal was to finish this book in black and white and I was moving along briskly through that process. But I have been asked to provide a larger set of color samples of my book so that a publisher can get a better view of the finished product that we are ULTIMATELY aiming for. That has made me have to step away from my normal process of penciling and inking at a pretty steady clip and get back to coloring pages (I’m still penciling and inking pages too, gotta keep chugging along).
It has made me stop and think that I managed this book with publishing failure in mind. Because it’s such a long shot sometimes to expect you will sell a book, I started setting timetables so that I could selfpublish by January but now that I have to set aside this time to focus on coloring pages for my pitch that goal is fairly unreasonable. But life has a way of doing things. Funny thing is I started thinking of how I was going to make this all work now that my timelines are off for self-publishing, instead of realizing that, what a minute, I have an agent who could be on board shortly and that’s one step from getting it in front of people! So why am I thinking around the idea that it won’t sell! I say I need to get rid of that thought outright and go all out on the ultimate goal: Selling this book to a publisher!
So my expectations have been shaken up, but that’s a great thing! Because what it has been shaken up for is getting the book closer where my dream for this book has been. It’s time to aim for the fence folks and not think about all of the ways it could go wrong. I will deal with stuff later. Or maybe I won’t 🙂
Do you ever set your expectations with plan B being given too much attention?
Current Status:
Script: DONE
Thumbnails: 50 pages
Pencils: 48 pages
Inks: 21 pages
Colors: 4 pages (25 needed for pitch)