Take a deep breath. This one is a doozy.
I’ve blogged about a lot of projects over the years. Sewing things and crafts for kids. Painting and quilting. Bible studies and volunteer work. But this one takes the cake. (I’ve blogged about some cake projects, too, come to think of it.)
I’m writing a book. I wrote a book. I’m writing a book.
In November, I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month, which urges people to take the pledge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. This was my first year, and I won NaNoWriMo! I ended the month with just a little over 50K.
That’s an awesome feeling. There are over 300,000 participants and I heard somewhere (can’t find my source again at the moment to link, I will if I stumble back over it though!) that around 25,000 people won. That’s a pretty small chunk of people.
But. As great as it felt to validate my novel on the NaNo website and see the big “WINNER!” logo, it was like scaling the first peak of a roller-coaster. You know what comes after the first peak, right? The first drop.
50,000 words does technically meet the definition of a novel, but it’s a really short one. Most modern novels are in the 80-85,000 range. Therefore, even though I won NaNo, I wasn’t really done.
I spent the month of December adding to the work, and a few days before the kids got out on their holiday break, I decided it was done! (Well. Done enough to let a couple of people read it and give feedback.)
So then I was all, “Yay! I’m done! I wrote a book!”
I spent the two weeks of Christmas break trying NOT to think about my characters and my plotline. But then I got the feedback from my darling beta readers. And I had to admit, they had some great points. It was time to edit.
So. I was editing away. Doing little re-writes here and there, and daydreaming about my main character again… and a few days ago I realized that the two secondary characters are really pretty close to having excellent story arcs of their own… if I just give them a few more chapters to develop.
Now I’m back in the saddle again. (The writing saddle, not the riding saddle.) My word count was around 67,500 at the end of my first round of edits; my new goal with these new chapters is to end up around 86,000 words.
And even then, it won’t be done. It will just be ready to send to a few more trusted beta readers. And then it will probably need more edits.
But one of these days, Aragorn. Pow! to the moon!