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I Finished The First Draft Of My Novel!

I've done it. I wrote a novel. Well, technically, a novel is 50,000 words, and my book is 33,000. But I'm proud of it all the same!


Between the dates of September 29, 2018 and June 13, 2019 I crafted my book. That's 36 weeks, and 5 days. That's 100+ hours of work into a project. It doesn't feel like I spent that much time on it, but I have a book to prove it.


The story turned out so much better than I hoped, yet it failed miserably in so many ways. It's a mixed bag of success and failure, and that's how every first draft is supposed to be. I learned about my characters, and which ones work, and which ones need fixed or cut. I learned how my plot is going to work. But most importantly, I discovered what my book is truly about, the theme that ties it all together.


If you're wondering how much different it really is from the synopsis you read, the answer is... not much. My synopsis was supposed to capture the essence of my novel, and it did that quite well. Many, many, details, backstories, and plotlines are changing, but my book will follow the same lines of my main character struggling with hatred, while trying to hunt a dragon.


One thing I can tell you is going to completely different, is most of the prose of my story. I grew so much, because the only way to improve your skills as a writer, is to write. Now that I look back on the first act of my novel, I realize all of it is getting thrown out the window. It's okay writing, but it ties very poorly to the rest of the story.


And it wasn't just my skills as a writer that grew, but myself, in sort of an indescribable way. It's true that even if no one reads your work, you can write for yourself, because writing a novel changes you. I can't pin down exactly what it is, but I feel sort of maturity in thought, emotion, and creativity. Writing forces you to brainstorm ideas, correctly capture the emotions of a story, and imagine entire worlds into existence. It's a fuzzy, yet real transformation.


Now that we're covered that stuff, I can tell you what's coming. Currently, I'm taking a week-long break from my novel. There is no looking at it, reading it, or worrying about it (I broke that last rule last night, whoops.) But after this week is done, I'm going to spend the next one and a half months rewriting and editing my entire novel. I've set a goal to spend 50 hours in July just working on my novel. The timeline is so strict because the OYAN Student Novel Contest has its deadline on August 15th.

So I should have a working novel by that time, if I don't give myself a heart-attack trying to get it edited. You can expect a distributable version of my book by the end of this year, I hope. It is most likely just going to be a document/kindle version, but there's a chance at some amazon printed copies, so let me know if you'd be willing to buy one of those, and if it'd be worth it to invest in that.


Thanks for reading guys,

Elijah

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