THE END

Those are the two sweetest words I’ve seen in a long time.

Yes, I wrote them. Last night around midnight. When I finished the first draft of the book!

I had to go back and check the date on my last post, and I could hardly believe it was only a month ago when I had hit the half way mark in my word count.

I have been working like a crazy person to get through the last half of the book. Once I hit 40,000, my desire to finish kicked into overdrive and to be honest, I’ve done little else but write for the past month.

I’m sure some of my family and friends think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, but I had to say no to many things to keep my priorities straight.

The truth of the matter is that there is only one way to write a book – BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard). Ha, ha!

I’ve spent my lunch hours writing. I’ve stayed up late and wrote. I’ve sequestered myself in my house for long weekends and done nothing but wrote. And it paid off! I’ve made it through my first draft!

I didn’t quite hit the 80,000 mark I had set for myself. The final word count came in at 74,200. But I do have a few things I need to go back and add in that I just left as “-insert here-” as a marker. That will beef up the word count a bit.

So, what is the next step? Well, this first draft is rough. Very rough. I haven’t stopped to correct typos or re-write anything. That part comes now. I’ve printed off the entire book (all 212 pages of it) and now I get to go back and read it myself. I’ll be correcting typos as I see them and making notes to myself about things that need to be added or changed or deleted. I need to make sure that what I had in my head translated onto the paper.

Then, there will be re-writes. A lot of re-writes. The first of many to come. One rule of writing is that “writing is re-writing.”

Many writing blogs and websites refer to your current project as your “WIP” (work in progress), and that’s a very true statement. Any book or writing project is a work in progress. There’s always some word that can be replaced with a better, stronger word. There’s always a tighter way to word dialogue. Characters need to be developed and prose needs to be polished.

But at some point, it will be ready to show the world. Or at least your close friends and family. 😉

I will be looking for some beta readers, so stay tuned. I might be calling on you!

I want to have a decent draft ready when I attend the writer’s conference again this August. I’m hoping to talk to a couple of editors and see if anyone is willing to work with me on this book. I want to have it professionally edited before I try to pitch it to an agent or publishing company.

I also want to add more to this blog site. Things like pictures of places I’m using for inspiration, pictures of what the characters look like in my head, to help you get to know the characters and the story a bit more.

Editors and agents look at your online presence as much as the actual book you’ve written. It’s helpful to have Facebook and Twitter accounts and a website that gets traffic. I have those all things, but I’ll be stepping it up a notch in the coming months.

Thank you all so much for all the prayers, encouragement, and support over the past year. It’s not over yet, so keep praying!

The best is yet to come!