I’m finished

  • Current word count: 46,781
  • New words written: 2,530
  • Words til goal: 0 DONE!
  • I’m done! Finished. Complete. The end.

    It was a great moment, typing The End after my last sentence. I enjoyed it for about 45 seconds, then opened another Word document and started typing notes on all the things I have to revise. 🙂

    Part of me is anxious to begin the revision right away, and I might do some this week, just a couple parts that I know how I want to rework them, while they’re fresh in my head. But other than that, I’m going to try to resist revising too soon. Giving myself a little break before looking at the story again will allow me to see the book with a fresher eye and do a better job in the revision, maybe cutting down the number of revisions I have to do. We’ll see.

    I might even try Holly Lisle‘s One-Pass Manuscript Revision Method.

    In the meantime, I’m going to sleep late a few mornings and start working on book three. I have a number of ideas stored away, but I’m not yet sure which one should be my next novel. I’ll start doing some research, let the characters float around in my brain for a little while, and see what speaks loudest.

    How are you doing with your writing?

    Write On!

    7 Responses

    1. KevinFitz113 says:

      Hooray!!! Congratulations. When can we read it? 😛

    2. Vonna Carter says:

      Isn’t that a great feeling? Congratulations!

    3. Ahhh! I was so excited to see the title of this post – good job meeting, and exceeding, your goal! It’s inspiring. 🙂

    4. Karen Strong says:

      Congrats! You should be so proud! Now you can join the revising party! Ha.

    5. Casey says:

      I love Holly’s one-pass method as a way to think through my revisions, but I haven’t had a successful one-pass. Obviously. LOL.

      CONGRATULATIONS!!

    6. mand says:

      Just read this and the two previous posts all in one go, and together they tell an exciting mini-story. ;0) Congratulations. Definitely take that break, even if you’re writing something else while you do.

      So far i haven’t been that near an end, but i recognise the fear of finishing. Straight from here i happened upon Overcoming Self-Doubt across on QueryTracker. Looks like you’ve succeeded in that. For the time being anyway!

    7. Thanks, all.

      KevinFitz113, it still has a lot of revising to go through. 🙂 Don’t know if you want to read it yet.

      Karen, you know it! I’m actually really looking forward to the revising, but I’m going to try to hold off for a bit. I have been revising one scene at the end that I knew was really bad, because it’s in my head.

      Casey, I love the idea behind Holly’s one-pass method too, but I think it’s really hard to do. The thing is, sometimes you don’t find the real gems until after you’ve done a few revisions. And sometimes the gems are because of past revisions, not the first draft. Holly’s so experienced and knows her own writing so well it works great for her. I hope to be at that point some day, but I know I’m not there yet.

      And Mand, I’ll have to check out that link. I think self-doubt is something all writers deal with a lot. I know I do. But overcoming it is the best thing.

      Thanks again everyone. It does feel good.

    What do you think?