Writing Wednesday - What's Next?

So NaNoWriMo is over for 2022 and I 'won' it!

What's next?

Well...

A bit of rest and relaxation and putting aside the almost 200 pages of recipes and memories to percolate for a bit. 

And clean my house!

Next on my agenda is to start putting it into some readable form - organizing sections better, moving things around. Turning an 'idea' into more of a cohesive rough draft.

Also, and this is the part my co-workers are looking forward to, testing a lot of the recipes!

I realized many of the recipes haven't been touched by me in decades. So now is a good time, and excuse, to go in and test them to be sure I have the directions and ingredients down correctly.

And I am also looking at setting up a timeline to get the rough draft done, recipes tested or not, to get the book into the hands of some beta readers, hopefully by the end of March, 2023. I also need to look at options for formatting the book since it is a hybrid of memoir and cookbook. 

Another item I have on my list of to-do's is to see what, if any, pictures I want to include. Do I include old family pictures? Pictures of the food itself? So formatting and photography are questions to be addressed by the end of June, 2023. 

Then a final edit and format job and researching the best way to self-publish. Cover art? Professional editing? All this needs to be answered, hopefully, by the end of September, 2023. 

My ultimate goal is to publish by November, 2023 - in time for the holidays - and maybe some holiday gift buying of my book.

So, actually, the task of writing If You Cook, You Don't Do The Dishes is but a tiny portion of the whole ball of wax. But it is rolling along!