The End of the Month

My First Nano finished as a huge success.  I've never written a novel to completion although I've had about twenty attempts.  The hard deadline that Nano provided for me proved to be just what I needed.  Like a kick in the pants, Nano gave me a goal.

After 16 days of "writing abandon" I completed my 50K - I would have finished sooner, but I came down with a monster cold while simultaneously running around the Virginia Horse Center for our State Finals Horse Show.  Amazing since I shook in my boots the first time I sat behind my laptop's keyboard and sat down to write a novel.

After several 30 minute word sprints to keep me motivated, on Day 26 I completed the novel.  79,046 words of a first draft.  Granted, the draft is ROUGH as a cat's tongue, but it's a full length first draft!

Day 27 - I took a much needed day off.  But my son bugged me to death about getting the chance to read it, so I published it as a quick .pdf and put it on our Nook for him  to read, warning him  that it may contain sentences that don't make sense and I slip into first person now and then when I didn't mean to.  He said, "I don't care," and read half the book in one sitting.

Day 28 - The editing begins!  Friends warned me that it may take 6 months up to 4 years to edit  novel, and I wanted to leave it on the computer and never touch it again.  I edited the first 3 chapters and ended up adding 1K more words of description while removing about another 500.  As I complained about how rough my novel was and how I didn't know whether or not to finish it, my son chimed in "It's great!  I don't know what you're talking about."  And that 11 year old shot of  courage will carry me through a little while longer.

Soon I'll be asking friends if the'll do a beta read for me - already have one or two takers.  If you'd like to give an opinion, drop me a line!  Thanks!