The first draft of my first full-length novel is complete at just over 83,000 words.
I’m not going to subject anyone to reading it for now, not even myself.
Instead, I’m going to let it sit in a virtual drawer for a while. The plan is to take it out again in December and consider about doing something with it.
I didn’t write science fiction or fantasy for this one. It’s more like a slice of life, a crux and turning point in one person’s journey. It’s a love story, and, in that way, a bit of a fantasy. The arc of the story is less clear-cut than a fantasy quest or the conquering of an external villain, but that’s less a fault of the genre than my own inexperience – hence the practice.
I’m in a bit of shock right now. I’ve been writing about 1000 words a day on this story since July 3rd, with the days I was hiking Snowslide Lakes excepted, and I feel hollow without that goal poised over my head. I’m going to be taking a class this semester, and so I did plan to finish it before class started so I wouldn’t be tempted away from classwork by it. But class won’t start for another few weeks.
There is a lightness to my mind, and I can’t quite grasp that I have finished that first draft. It is done. It might gather virtual dust in a virtual drawer for the next fifty years, but I still did it. I can do it again.
If it does go anywhere, I will make an update on this blog, but I almost feel like I’ve gotten it out of the way. I’ve created a long work, completed a story of novel length, and it was good practice.
Now it’s time to move on, and do better.