So I finished the first draft of my novel last night. 193 consecutive days of writing. 260 pages. Just under 110,000 words.
I printed it off as I finished each chapter, so I actually have full hard copy of the entire thing. It felt more real when I could see the pages stacked together. Now it's going to sit in a drawer for two months before I go back to fix it.
It needs a lot of fixing. I'm not even sure if I think it's publishable. If I don't think it's a good book by the time I'm done editing, I won't even try to publish it. And that's okay. I can chalk it up to experience and move on with the next book. I have ideas for a couple more romance novels and a short urban fantasy series I'm not ready to tackle yet. That series I may never be brave enough to tackle. We'll see.
I am very proud of myself, though I don't really feel like I 'finished' anything, really. The real work starts in two months when I take the jumbled-up, rambling mess I completed last night and turn it into something worth reading.
It's going to be a long and sometimes painful process. I'm okay with that. Everything I do now, whether reading, writing or editing, has the potential to make me a better writer if I let it. Everything I encounter in my life is now fodder for my internal printing press. Those of you who know me, you have been warned.
I realised only recently that I started out with a lot of good habits. (I did it completely by accident, believe me!) From day one I've been logging my progress in a journal. I write the date, how many consecutive days I've been writing, and what chapter I worked on. Any stray thoughts about the process go into the journal as well. This helps keep me honest, and gives me something to refer back to in the future if I'm stuck, or just curious about how my process has evolved.
I write every single day. I went from not writing fiction for fifteen years to writing every day. I decided to develop a habit out of it, and I did.
I write at the same time every day. I discovered early on that I can't write and parent at the same time. It just makes me frustrated and stifles my creative energy. Better to just do it after they're in bed.
I started just with the goal of writing something every day. A couple of months ago I changed that to a 400 word per day minimum. That's one page. I discovered that my inspiration hits somewhere between 350 and 400 words. So the first few hundred I find difficult, but once I hit 400 or so, I often find I don't stop until I've hit 800. Or 1,000. Or more, some days. I found the quota keeps me pushing past the hard part into the headspace where the words come more easily, and more naturally.
I would like to eventually write for a living. It's a big dream, and one that may never work out, but it's my dream. And regardless of whether I'm successful or not as an Author, I am a Writer. I'm going to keep writing, because it feeds my soul.
Hopefully that will also translate into more blog posts. I stayed away from blogging at first because I wasn't sure how to make enough time to write a novel and blog. I've got the timing figured out much better now so I think I can manage both. We'll see. I'm terrible at maintaining this thing. Maybe I'll add a quota for blogging too.
Thanks for continuing to check my blog out, despite my sporadic posting.
Love,
-Nan
