COMPLETION!
I've titled so many things "FINISHED!" tonight that I thought I'd use something a little different. I'm a writer, dammit, I can use a thesaurus!
At approximately 9:53 pm, I wrote the final words of my novel. They were, strangely enough, "They began."
I've been calling my parents (Mom's in Amarillo visiting friends, so I had to call them separately. Weird) and telling the people in my WoW guild and posting to every message board that I can think of. I'm just ridiculously proud and happy and I want to remember this moment forever and for once I'm not shy about asking for kudos. I deserve them, dammit and I'm not going to creep around and second guess myself on this one. This is a major accomplishment and one that I should be proud of and crowing to the hills about it isn't a bad thing at all :D. I may even call Mer-Mer tonight to tell her, but I'll consider that later, when I'm done here :P.
I clocked in at 84,407, so my original word count goal of 90,000 didn't quite work. Of course, if I'd been on track to hit 90k by tomorrow, I probably would have only finished yesterday, so all-in-all I don't feel too bad about having a couple of slow word days.
The characters really spoke clearly at the end, which sounds like I did my job wrong, but it was completely effortless. The last chapter (not counting the epilogue where "They began" sits) was basically an extended conversation among the three mains and two minors. There was an ebb and flow to them that I greatly enjoyed and it was easy to see what was going to happen next. All the basic plot points that I needed them to mention came up casually in conversation before moving on to the next topic and the next. It was all so easy. I loved that feeling.
I cried a bit at the end, both from the joy of accomplishment and from seeing the characters I love come to a place that was so much better than where they were. It was the same sort of emotion that I felt when I finished the outline, but a lot more intense. This is HUGE! This is monumental! This is the start of something bigger. Or at least I hope it is.
I'm going to try to put it away for a month (that may not happen, who knows :P) and then try to start on edits in January. I'll get the basics (grammar, spelling, punctuation) out of the way and then move on to character development, plot movement, and adding in all the bits that I sort of skimmed over because I didn't want to write them at the time :P. They say writing the novel is the easy part. I'm certain they're right. But I'm going to stick it out and get this one to the point that I can shop it around to an agent. Anything that happens after that is gravy.
After all, I wasn't sure I could finish a novel. And I did that a day early. So setting another goal, this one to get my novel into an agen't hands, isn't all that far fetched.
I'm not as cranked up as I was an hour ago, but I'm still excited. Now I have to figure out how to wind down and go to bed :P.
At approximately 9:53 pm, I wrote the final words of my novel. They were, strangely enough, "They began."
I've been calling my parents (Mom's in Amarillo visiting friends, so I had to call them separately. Weird) and telling the people in my WoW guild and posting to every message board that I can think of. I'm just ridiculously proud and happy and I want to remember this moment forever and for once I'm not shy about asking for kudos. I deserve them, dammit and I'm not going to creep around and second guess myself on this one. This is a major accomplishment and one that I should be proud of and crowing to the hills about it isn't a bad thing at all :D. I may even call Mer-Mer tonight to tell her, but I'll consider that later, when I'm done here :P.
I clocked in at 84,407, so my original word count goal of 90,000 didn't quite work. Of course, if I'd been on track to hit 90k by tomorrow, I probably would have only finished yesterday, so all-in-all I don't feel too bad about having a couple of slow word days.
The characters really spoke clearly at the end, which sounds like I did my job wrong, but it was completely effortless. The last chapter (not counting the epilogue where "They began" sits) was basically an extended conversation among the three mains and two minors. There was an ebb and flow to them that I greatly enjoyed and it was easy to see what was going to happen next. All the basic plot points that I needed them to mention came up casually in conversation before moving on to the next topic and the next. It was all so easy. I loved that feeling.
I cried a bit at the end, both from the joy of accomplishment and from seeing the characters I love come to a place that was so much better than where they were. It was the same sort of emotion that I felt when I finished the outline, but a lot more intense. This is HUGE! This is monumental! This is the start of something bigger. Or at least I hope it is.
I'm going to try to put it away for a month (that may not happen, who knows :P) and then try to start on edits in January. I'll get the basics (grammar, spelling, punctuation) out of the way and then move on to character development, plot movement, and adding in all the bits that I sort of skimmed over because I didn't want to write them at the time :P. They say writing the novel is the easy part. I'm certain they're right. But I'm going to stick it out and get this one to the point that I can shop it around to an agent. Anything that happens after that is gravy.
After all, I wasn't sure I could finish a novel. And I did that a day early. So setting another goal, this one to get my novel into an agen't hands, isn't all that far fetched.
I'm not as cranked up as I was an hour ago, but I'm still excited. Now I have to figure out how to wind down and go to bed :P.