The Eagle Has Landed!

Don't look now, but I might actually be a novelist!

I finished my first draft of my first novel tonight, and I feel like I'm walking (and typing) on air. The last two sessions wound up being two of my best of the whole process, as I typed 4,067 words today. And boy, did the time fly when I was doing it.

I can't believe I actually got there, and now I know why people want to do this for a living. It's for these types of moments, right now. I've never been as giddy typing a blog as I am tonight. I apologize if I'm rambling, but I don't really care.

Will it get published someday? I don't know. That's not why I did this. I set out to see if this was something I could actually do, and now it's done. It's rough and will need a lot of editing, but it's DONE.

The total word count for the work in progress is 79,731 words, and it took me exactly two months and one day from when I started to hammer it out. In a weird sort of way, I can't wait to start hacking out some of those words I agonized over in the editing process!

But that's for another day. For now, however, I'm going to relax and enjoy tonight. Woo hoo!

Final Countdown

Finished a key chapter tonight, and now all I have left of my first draft (before clean-up, quickie edit) is to wrap up two or three chapters that have given me a little bit of trouble.

I wanted to have this draft finished by the end of October, but now I'll be disappointed if I don't have it done by the end of the week. I've said before that it doesn't seem like the end, but it is.

The work in progress is more words than I would like, but that's just fine with me. Too much in the first draft is better than not enough, and I'm sure I'll be able to chop it down.

What I have learned through this process so far is that I have good writing habits, and bad ones (who doesn't?).

But the good traits have found their way to outnumber the bad, and that's when I flourished. The main thing for me throughout this process is that I don't have to force myself to sit down and write anymore - even thought that's what got me through the rough patches. Now I'm looking forward to each and every session that I write.

And I've found I'm pretty darn good when I get on a roll. Yes, that's me patting myself on the back (I think I've earned it).

I ended on a roll tonight, so let's hope that continues into tomorrow, so I can finish this thing with a flourish.

To the victor go the spoils

There is nothing more rewarding than a super-duper writing session, and I had two of those today. I don't like tooting my own horn, but I feel pretty darn good right now, so I had to write about it.

Since this morning, I conquered a HUGE (in importance, not necessarily in size) chapter in which there is a giant conflict between a few characters, and it was one that had taken me some time (and a few fingernails) to get through. I had been struggling with it, and had typed up a few different options for it.

Finally, the trees became the forest, and everything came into view. I was able to plow through the chapter, and I went over 60,000 words on my work in progress along the way. To stick with the forest metaphor, I'm not longer on the way into the woods, I know really, really feel like I'm on my way out. There are a few more important scenes and whatnot left to write, and things might get tinkered with in editing, but confidence right now is over the moon.

I'm not published. I don't know what it feels like to get 'The Call' from an agent or that first check from a publisher or any of that good stuff. But that's not why I started writing a novel.

I started writing this novel because I love writing. I continue writing this novel for the feelings of accomplishment like I have bubbling through me right now.

I was going to go to bed, but I just can't.