I had intended to update my blog more than one a month. Honest. But since I last posted, I’ve been on a bit of a writing blitz. In fact, since I posted exactly a month ago, I’ve written the last 32 thousand words of the first draft of my novel, Terra Incognita. It was incredibly exciting to realise last night that I was about to wrap up the last few things I wanted to, and the end was rushing up on me. And then it was there! And they all lived happily ever after… (or did they?…)
Never having attempted to write anything of this length before, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. How the situation and characters would evolve almost under their own free will, taking the story in directions I’d never planned – but which were vast improvements on what I originally thought the story would be about…
My characters have really done the heavy lifting in establishing the key themes of this novel. There were so many times that I created a minor character who was meant to perform a specific “background” role to move the story along, and then be left behind, only to find they refused to stay there. They have demanded to be given their own voice, which I’ve been happy to indulge.
My initial estimate (hah!) was that I might write something like 80 to 100 thousand words. Which I revised to 130 thousand. Then 150. When the dust settled last night, it came in at just over 151 thousand words. I’m sure that when I come to re-read it in a month or two, I’ll find a lot to take out.
In the meantime, I’ve put virtual “sticky notes” all the way through the document which I’ll deal with first. They’re mainly continuity issues (things I didn’t know I’d need to have later in the novel and need to introduce earlier, characters I hadn’t entirely worked out how they “sounded”, changes of mind, etc), or aspects that require a little more fleshing out. Once they’re done, and I’ve got something that hangs together end-to-end, all the advice I’ve seen is to put it in my “bottom drawer” for a month or two at least and try to forget what I’ve written, so I can come back to it with fresh eyes for the second draft.
My approach has been to just keep pushing forward to get to the end. Not looking back at what I could have done better. That’s how I’ll now be spending all my time. Finish it. Forget it. Fix it.
It is very tempting to start on the second draft right now, but I’ll just have to try to resist that urge. And find something else to write. I have some ideas on that…
One last writing comment. Something I’ve found that really worked for me was to track my writing activity. Every day. At first on bits of paper. Later, in a spreadsheet. Then I added a chart. Having to confront runs of days with “0” in the word count column isn’t nice, but reflected the reality of my life at the time. And at the end of it all, I’ve got a lovely reminder of how my first attempt to write a novel went – An initial burst of activity and excitement that went for months, until I hit 100,000 words. Then a two-month period of struggle, both creative and with other things going on at the time. And finally, the magic of the sprint to the finish. As I said, 32 thousand words in the last month. Over 15 thousand of them in the final week. And then it was done…
Thanks for the interesting update and peek behind the scenes. I imagine you’re looking forward to the time when you can say, after all the revisions and redrafting, finally, “It’s d-o-n-e”
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