Tuesday 27 September 2011

Book 4 - First draft complete.

Woohoo!  I’ve finished the first draft.
I’m thinking that I should have a week or two away from it, so that I can start the edit with fresh eyes, but I think that’s going to be quite hard.
When I wrote it, the sole aim was to get the story written.  I know that there were bits where I couldn’t quite think of the word or phasing that was needed, but in order to keep the momentum going, I put down the first thing that came to mind.  I’m probably going to cringe when I read it back. 
I can already hear the suspect bits calling me.  It’s like they don’t like being second rate.  I would stick my fingers in my ears and go ‘lalalalalalala’ to blot them out, but there are quite a lot of people around me at the moment.  I doubt that they would understand.
I couldn’t quite remember when I started this book, so I looked at the document properties.
The outline document was started on the 12th Jan 2011.  I last updated it on the 18th Feb.  So, it took just over a month to outline the key points of the plot.
I didn’t start to break down of the plot into chapters until the 15th March.  I was doing, for what I thought was the final time, an edit on the current book.  I also started the first draft on the 15th.  This means that it’s taken me just over nine months to get the idea written from scratch, and six months to actually write the book.  I have to admit, I’m quite pleased with that.

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations! That's such a huge thing! You should go celebrate.

    And I don't think you really have to wait to get fresh eyes-- the beginning you wrote six months ago, right? You have plenty fresh eyes for editing that. I think it's good to get distance to find focus, but you'll know when that time is. If it's still calling to you that strongly, the time isn't now. At least imo. :)

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  2. Congrats!! Take a little break for sure - celebrate - then keep us updated on the revisions!

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  3. Peggy - Thanks. I'm feeling quite smug at the moment.
    I realised about two thirds into the book that the start was wrong, and I've have had to fight the urge to to go and fix it until I finished the book. I think you're right, I need to leave it a little bit longer.

    Alexis - Thanks. I'll make a post when I start the forst edit.

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