Thank You and Good Night

So it turns out that 12% of people from the poll earlier this week were right -- I've finished the first draft of my story, but I haven't quite hit the 50,000 word mark. I could have gone back and added in the 487 words necessary to reach the target but it would have felt a bit too much like cheating (surely that would be a second draft!). So that's it folks! First draft complete with 49,513 words.

For those of you who would like to read the rough draft, here is a link to the PDF version.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged and supported me throughout this month -- both on my book and in my recovery. I am one very lucky person novelist, that's for sure!

The final day for the first draft

It's Day 31. The final day of my novel writing adventure. More accurately, it's the final day of this stage of my novel writing adventure.

What I will have achieved by the end of today (hopefully!) is a completed first draft, the entire dramatic arc of the story.

The No Plot? No Problem! Writing Kit that I've been following says this:

The big difference between this kit and other how-to books on writing is that I don't believe in ghouls or missteps. I also don't believe in great first drafts. What I believe in -- and this is an idea shared by Anne Lamott, Stephen King, and other professional novelists -- is the importance of completed first drafts. Making the journey from "Once upon a time" to "they lived happily ever after" (or "and the monsters devoured all of them," as the case may be) is one of the most fun and juicy adventures you'll ever undertake.

To make the most of that adventure, I'm going to ask you to write in a way that may feel a little uncomfortable at first. I want you to forget about revisions. You'll be turning off the spell-checker and abandoning the quest for pretty sentences.

It may sound like a remedial approach to writing, but in fact it's practical and results-oriented. Because revising and rewriting each paragraph of a novel until it's ready for a bookstore shelf is a sure-fire way to collect an incomplete collection of exquisite paragraphs. 

So, to all those kindly people who have said they are eager to read my novel, please note that, at this stage, all you'll be reading is a rough draft of a completed novel.

For example, the first 12,963 words of my book are in the First Person narrative before I then switch for the rest of the novel over to Third Person.  This is just one example of how my novel will need to change and adjust once I embark on the editing process.

Of course a big reason for my writing this blog post is ego-protection. I'm only human! But hopefully it's a bit more subtle than my pre-epiphany post, Just so we're all clear -- which is truly cringe-worthy. 

And, at least with a bit of ego-protection, I'm then able to happily share my (hopefully, by the end of today!) completed rough draft with anyone who is interested. This will be in the spirit of Growth -- so if you have any helpful suggestions for improvements, if you can point out any areas where something doesn't make sense, if you notice any inconsistencies, etc. then this would be really helpful for me as I work on editing and improving my book.

You may prefer to hold off and wait for the final version (although there are no guarantees as to when this will be ready!).

But before I get ahead of myself, I'd better get back to writing. I haven't hit the 50,000 word jackpot quite yet...!

The results are in

Thank you to everyone who voted in yesterday's poll. The results are in!

• 62% of people believe that I will complete my story and finish writing 50,000 words
• 25% of people believe that I will write 50,000 words but won't have finished the story
• 12% of people believe that I will have a finished story -- of less than 50,000 words
• 0% of people believe that I won't finish my story or reach 50,000 words

It's really encouraging for me to know that everyone believes I'll at least partly achieve the month's aim, with no one selecting the final option of an incomplete story and less than 50,000 words.

To maintain some suspense and drama as the end draws near, with tomorrow being the 31st of April, I will not give an exact word count here. But I will give these clues:

• I've written more than 45,000 words
• I have some idea of how my story might end

Whatever the final outcome, I'm grateful to everyone this past month for supporting me in my writing and also in my recovery. It's been a very long month -- and it's not over yet!

Now back to writing...