The (Long and) Winding Road

Those of you from the Brutal Death Denial Support Group forum already know about this (and have had some sneak previews), but I am currently working on my own zombie apocalypse fiction. I wasn't considering jumping on this bandwagon, but the "zombie restaurant" idea from my community writing club was just too much for me to pass on.

One problem is that I'm writing it as a romance of sorts. I am not a romantic person (even telling-you-this-isn't-a-date-but-still-at-dinner-and-movies-with-a-male dates just make me anxious and ready to run out screaming), and I have a tendency to skip over any tingly-kissy parts of things like Divergent and Clockwork Prince. Needless to say, what I originally write probably won't have any convincing romance beyond giggly fluff, but that's what beta readers are for, no?

Although I've been writing this as Hetalia fan fiction with the plan of posting it on fanfiction.net (which is still my intention), I've actually been editing pretty heavily as I go. Normally I don't do much of this because I can't stand reading my own writing, but I had better get used to it if I'm going to try to get published.

I'm also seriously considering converting it into an original fiction once it's done and I do some large-scale editing. I already have some name and personality changes prepared, and I think it might work. I'm not sure that I'll have all of it done by June 30 (which means I would need another NaNoWriMo win if I wanted five free copies printed), but I'm actually a bit hopeful. If I attempt this, I think I'll change the title from The Long and Winding Road to just The Winding Road, since copyright laws are worded awkwardly and I don't think the male protagonist is going to be such a big Beatles fan in the rewrite.

It's quite possible that if I do the rewrite, this will be the first book I try to publish. I'll definitely go for amazon.com publishing, with something cheap (I hear three cents per one thousand words is the best pricing?), unless some strange and wonderful miracle happens. I have no idea what such a miracle would be, but if some of my published professors/friends/husbands-of-people-my-mother-works-with get me in with their publishers or something somehow, that could qualify? Considering I have no original fictions worthy of publishing yet (only one is actually finished, and it's one of the quality I can't reread to edit), I haven't looked too far into this business.

All of this is still a long way off, though, so don't go searching madly through the Amazon store just yet. It's probably going to be another month or two before The Long and Winding Road even makes it to fanfiction.net (I'm planning to start posting chapters once Unsurvivable finishes, and about the same time I get to writing Break Out), so it'll probably be a year before I try to get the original version published.

Any input, advice, or comments in general are appreciated.