First Draft Complete!
After nearly two whole years of working on this manuscript (on and off, not non-stop, mind you) I finally have the first complete draft of my first complete novel!
It clocks in at 95,000 words and 365 pages. In other words, there’s still a lot of work (read: editing, trimming, slicing, and dicing) to be done. But I’m not going to think about that now. I’m going to think about how good it feels to have completed a project with an actual beginning, middle, and end. (I can be a notorious project abandoner when shinier things appear in my head. I’m like a crow that way.)
My first step was to print it out and put all the pages in a fancy binder and tape on the lovely mock cover that designer Will Staehle made for me, so I could enjoy the ‘tangibleness’ of my work. If this small physical proof of my efforts feels this good, I can only imagine what it must feel like to hold a published book in my hands.
My next step is to simply admire the binder for a week or more (Sleep with it. Eat with it. Normal, right?) and resist the urge to start editing right away. I need some emotional distance, and I want to bask in this project-finishing glow before the blood, sweat, and tears start flowing once again.
This article was written by Tania