Where we are now - release candidate and submission!

There can be several ‘good’ types of submission in the world, and though the type I have ahead of me is a little daunting I think I will find it enjoyable! The beta of Bunika has now been completed, and in October the time will come to send query letters to agents and publishers.

Many heartfelt thanks are due to my beta readers, some of whom poured a lot of time, effort and energy into delivering their honest opinions about it. It’s wonderful when people seem to enjoy what you create – and I think this could have happened because I very much enjoyed creating Bunika. As I said in one of my earlier posts, I pretty much loved every minute of it, and I hope this comes across in the writing!

Something else which occurred unexpectedly over the past few months was I had some quite solid ideas for a sequel. Now, due to other commitments in my life I cannot embark on drafting that yet – I imagine it will be a year or more till I can do that – but I am sporadically noting down ideas to get things gradually moving in that regard. Sufficed to say that writing a sequel will not be a forced process by any means, and I will allow the concepts for the book to develop organically before putting pen to paper, or in my case, putting keystrokes to pixels! That said, starting it could be sooner than that, who knows at this point!

For now though, of course, the focus is on Bunika and getting it out the gate and 95% of the work is done on the final draft. Over the next couple of weeks I shall get it finalised and then I will start sending queries out to agents and publishers.

The roadmap has been pretty much adhered to, to the letter, and at the moment I would hope for publication to happen towards the end of 2026. I imagine the road to getting the book published will be a long one, with many things about the publication process to dynamically learn along the way. The travel will be smooth in parts and bumpy in others, but I am definitely prepared and excited for the journey. As a comparison, I have experience of getting articles published in academic journals, and though having one's work peer-reviewed can be quite nerve-wracking at times I STILL enjoy the process!

As for where things will go for this blog – I imagine the next update will happen somewhere within the agent submission process. I am excited to see what that process holds and of course I’m thrilled that the book is mere inches away from being complete – and by "complete" I mean ready for publication as far as I am concerned.

Of course I couldn’t have done it without my alpha and beta readers, who have been thanked by name in the front of the book. Writing a novel can - and mostly should - be a solitary process, but as Stephen King said in his great work On Writing: write your first draft with the door closed, and write the second with the door open. In my case the door has been more ajar than fully open, but soon the time will come for Marika’s story to be available to all. I will update these pages as the journey towards that moment progresses!

P.S. The image for this post is a detail from an original piece called "Into the Crypt", which is concept art from Chapter IX of the book. It can be seen on the Portfolio section of this website :)