I’ve Finished! Now what?
Late last night, between the Diet Coke and the a cappella blaring through YouTube, I managed to finish the first draft of a project that started as a challenge to write something by myself, something that met the requirement of “novel-length” in a genre that I hadn’t fully explored. And so… I started to write Surreality.
According to the file information, that was May 26, 2009. It’s taken me a little over a year to write the first draft of a challenging piece, in the midst of other projects, people, and responsibilities. I should be happy, and… well, yeah. I am happy.
The work isn’t finished, though. This is only the first draft. Sometime tonight, I’ll prod the printer into spitting out all of the pages so I can go through, line by line, and edit this beast. There will be words to add, words to remove, and words to change. My multicolored ballpoint pens will be put to the test in the month ahead as I pick and poke at the draft.
After that, the first round of beta readers. And more edits. Then, more beta readers, followed by the last few edits and the parsing of this story into episodes to be podcast.
And while this goes on? I work on other projects with more confidence, because I’ve realized that hey, I can write something substantial on my own. Forward momentum, always.
May 31st, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Finishing projects is always a bittersweet experience. I think sometimes I hold off on finishing things because I don’t want the experience to end. Proud of you! You are awesome!
May 31st, 2010 at 9:08 pm
That is awesome! Anytime you clear a hurdle, its good.
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:18 am
Finishing a project, especially a novel length project you put a year of work in to, is something you should be proud of. You may not be done with the whole process, but you’re done with that step. So go you!