Other than indulging my penchant for expounding on space-related topics, and perhaps providing you with some insight into rocketry, I bring this discussion up because it informs a way I have been slowly coming to approach writing. I, probably like a lot of new writers, was approaching the writing of my stories like a single-stage-to-orbit. When I sat down to write, I had an expectation in my head that I would sit down and craft all of the components of a story in a single pass, and that revisions were mostly just for changing around wording and cleaning up typos. Which, it turns out, is really challenging to do, because stories are complicated.
Lost in Translation
No, I'm not above using cliche titles, when they serve me. Because I'm so very fond of stirring up controversy, I'm going to talk about something that divides more people than religion, politics, or the Great Pumpkin: movie/book adaptations. Fair warning: we're going to talk about some big name franchises, including Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, and others, so if you don't want to risk potential spoilers from either the book or movie versions of any of these, you might not want to read this post. Otherwise, let's mire ourselves in controversy.
A Place to Start
Maybe, if I were some kind of amazing author, a writing protege, with nothing to do but labor lovingly over my works of fiction, I could think about doing this the "normal" way, if such a thing even exists. There's something attractive about traditional publishing, mostly that the publisher usually takes care of all of the logistics, advertising, and social media outreach. In other words, the traditional publishing route (at least as I imagine it) would allow me to hide in a cave and write, without worrying about all of this publicity and business.