OHMYLANTA OHMYLANTA OHMYLANTA!!

At about 4 pm yesterday, I finished book one of my tetralogy.

…OH. MY. GOSH.

ajskldfjalerkfjalkefjawleuralw;eugoiajelkjf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jalkefjalkerfj!!!!

I don’t really know what else to say, haha!

So, I have officially written TWO books now. Two full-length novels. (And probably way too long, but whatever.)

Now on to editing/tweaking…and writing book two!

I am a little sad, actually, to be preparing to move on. I mean, maybe after editing this one (starting at the beginning and going through, making sure everything flows and fits), I will be ready. But as horrific as this first book is, I always love the beginnings of things. When everything is new.

My hope?

That I will be able to keep the same tone that marked the first book. Not so much the horrible/sad/everything is hopeless tone --- but the intensity of it, the unflinching look at unflinching brutality. What I would hate is for the rest of the story to become light and playful.

And I don’t think that will happen, but still. I want to avoid it.

I want every bit of this story to be grabs-you-by-the-throat-and-doesn’t-let-go.

Well, book one, it’s been crazy. You didn’t go anything like I anticipated, which is so good.

And main girl, here’s to our continued journey.

=D =D =D

Oh my gosh an actual post?!

Hi.

So, NaNoWriMo ended a week ago today.

I ended up with 53,415 words (had to make it end in a 5!)…and I am quite proud of that. (For those who don’t know/weren’t following, NaNo is a challenge to write a novel/50,000 words in a month.) I am always too hard on myself, though; in the days since then, I have written only about 3,000 words total, and I’ve been kind of bummed about that. But regardless.

I wish I had something all profound and whatnot to write on here, but to be quite honest, I don’t really remember how to do that. Ha! I have been so focused on the story, and so not-focused on anything else…I don’t know. As of right now, the story isn’t teaching me a whole lot. Or maybe I am not willing to learn much. I am just trying to wrap it up without being cliché, unrealistic, or indifferent. I don’t want to rush it; have never wanted to rush it or force it or just haphazardly throw and ending together.

What has NaNo taught me?

1. That discipline is key. During NaNo, I made myself get up early, prioritized my time far better than I had been prioritizing it. When I had an hour before I had to leave for work, instead of being like, “Eh, not enough time to get into anything…”, I said, “No. You have to write. You have to get at least _____ words today. And you can’t do it tonight --- you close. Sit and write something.” And I would. And most times when I did that, I hit --- or at least got very near --- my daily word-par.

2. That I can write 50,000 words in a month, without a huge amount of adjustment. I mean, I didn’t take time off work, I didn’t completely check out of the world. My husband and I even moved. (We don’t have much stuff, and we had help, but still.) A few hours a day of diligent writing, and I rather easily hit the daily word-par. Maybe I am being overly confident/cocky…but it didn’t seem THAT difficult. At times, yes, it was; but most of the time, it just kind of…happened.

3. That NaNo is one of THE best things I could have done for my writing. I will most definitely do it next year (provided that I’m not, like, dead or something…and have both hands!), and I am going to do my best to keep up the 50,000 words a month pace. I’m a bit behind for doing that this month, though I kind of wanted to chill through December, do some backstory stuff, and hit it hard again come January.

Admittedly, a LOT of what I wrote for NaNo was ideas I’d had in my head already and just hadn’t written yet. In fact, the first few weeks were especially that --- I needed to write, so everything that had been stewing had to come out. But I also came up with some new stuff, ideas that came as I wrote. Most notably is the past of a new girl character; it wasn’t planned at all, it just happened as I wrote a scene. So that kind of stuff is cool.

I truly have very little left to write in book one. I don’t really know how many pages, but it is no more than twenty, and probably closer to ten. My struggle right now is figuring out how to split up the chapters; things aren’t working too well on that front. So we shall see. I’d very much like to finish book one within the next few days --- which, again, if I discipline myself, this is very possible.

And on that note, I shall end this. Await my “BOOK ONE IS TOTALLY WRITTEN!!!” post with bated breath. ;)