I’ve been at this authoring gig for more than a blink now. I have fifteen books published, another ready to do something with, several WIPs (works in progress) and now another completed manuscript awaiting editing.
That’s right over the weekend I typed the words THE END. Sadly, it has been a really long time since I’ve done that. I used to finish between 2 – 4 books a year but I think this one took me two years. And it’s only a novella!
I took Friday off from work intent on finishing. I thought I could finish Friday, but that it might roll over into Saturday. Friday I got 4000 word in and knew I had a long day ahead of me. Saturday, I had a few chores to take care of, so didn’t sit down to write until the afternoon and had to stop when I realized no one was going to make dinner but me that night. After another 5000 words, I still wasn’t done.
What the heck? I had thought the book would be around the 20k mark, but Saturday I was already at 23k and counting. I knew I needed to just put my head down on Sunday morning, so I took my computer and a coffee cup to bed with me. Sunday morning I awoke, made a cup of Keurig coffee, and crawled back into bed. And wrote.
And wrote. And wrote. Holy cow. What a journey. I cried a couple times during the exciting final event. I cried again with Frank, in the hospital. It was all very emotional. And then I thought I might be done, but no. Not quite right. So, I tweaked and rewrote and then finally – 11,000 more words later – I was actually finished.
The first draft ended at 34,000 words. Almost twice as long as I’d expected, but still a novella, so that’s good. I already have the cover – squee – so now I can figure out how and when to share that as I make my way through edits and see if any of my critique partners are up for a read.
One of the greatest feelings for me as an author is completing a book, so I had to share the accomplishment here. Is there something you do in your line of work that just makes you want to shout out to the world? Let me know. I’d love to cheer you on.