So You've Written A Novel?

Congratulations. After many long hours, days, weeks, months (sometimes years) of doing this: 

Image: Hyperbole and a Half

You have turned you bubbling mass of ideas into a book type thing. Okay, a book. 

Now what? 

Obviously you've let it simmer, edited it into submission, and passed it around your critique group/beta readers/people who read your stuff. Those are given. But what about those printed copies?  You know, the red pen of doom scrawled on ones that sit in an unloved pile? 

Fear not. I have some handy uses.

1) Got an annoying door that won't stay open? Use that MS as a literary doorstop. When people trip over it you can tell them it's your book. Instant conversation starter. 

2) Stand on it for extra height when talking to taller people. 

3) Want a unique focal point? Wallpaper. A room covered in your words = priceless.

4) Do your friends/family/co-workers pester you to read your book? Give them a birthday/Christmas treat by wrapping their present in your pages. Not only will it look chic, but they'll get a sneak peak of your writing. Two birds, one MS. 

5) Build a fort. Okay, it may be the first small brick, but the foundations are important. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. 

Any more creative uses for that hard copy MS I've missed? 

P.S Got a completed manuscript? It's Mystery Agent contest time over on Operation Awesome tomorrow! We have 50 places available The prize? A full manuscript submission to the Mystery Agent judging the contest. So polish those 25 word MG or YA pitches.