Yay! I just finished the first draft of my third novel! It was starting to look a bit dicey there for a few days, but I finally buckled down and did it.
Here are some stats:
Genre: YA Adventure/Fantasy
Final Word Count: 51655
Final Page Count (double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman): 155
Days From Conception to Completion: 37
I was hoping to get it in under the 30 day mark, NaNoWriMo style like I did with my last one, but I didn't quite make it. Glad I stuck with it, though.
For those of you out there who have finished a first draft of a novel, you know that this is only just the beginning. Next comes the read-through, rewriting, sending it out to anyone and everyone who is willing to read through a rough draft, more rewriting, and hopefully some workshopping. Although that shouldn't scare off any fledgling writers! You can do it if you just go one step at a time.
This is novel number 3.5 for me - I did start on a sequel to one of my earlier novels, but stopped when I realized that I needed to get rid of 50% of the first novel. I got all the way to the read through for the second one before deciding that I just wasn't happy with it and moving on. I remember being upset when people said "hardly anyone publishes the first novel they ever write" back before I wrote my first one, but I think now I understand. Each novel is better than the last, and this one might actually be good enough for me to start looking for agents. We'll see how I feel after reading through it and getting some feedback.
