Rough Draft-Done!!

It's official...today I printed out the final chapter of my rough draft! I've wanted to write a novel my whole life, but was scared, I guess, of failing in one or many ways. This year, I finally vowed to follow through. In March, I began with a character sketch, plot outline, and a month or so of research. I set a schedule to be agressive enough to keep me motivated & productive yet hopefully would set me up for success. I set a tentative schedule/plan to avoid losing focus or drag out the task to the point I'd never finish. I impressed myself with being able to write about two chapters per week, with the exception of the ending. That has taken much longer as I realized my characters have evolved along with the expanded plot, & I wanted to be sure the ending rang true.

So, 7 mos. and 71 some-odd thousand words later, I'm done the actual writing of the rough draft of my manuscript. I have some editing, probably extensively, next. Then, I will have some readers go through it & offer opinions before I attempt to enter the publishing game. I wrote two children's books several years back, but abandoned the submissions after a while. I just lost steam. As I promised myself this spring, even if this novel never makes into to that ultimate point, I wanted to do this for myself. I've proven to myself that I could complete it, & that feels divine!!

The title is "A Second's Thought"...& I'm beginning to create a writer's web portfolio as well.