At long last, I have finished the novel I started writing on November 1st. By last week, I was starting to despair that I would never finish. My greatest fear was that I would still be writing when the boys finished school and were home constantly for their Christmas break (which starts today as soon as school lets out). Thankfully, with the help of my walks on the school track, I saw my way clear to the end and wrote it all down.
The novel came in at 113, 517 words, and that is after I took out 1665 words (words and scenes that I later came back to and knew needed to be eliminated). I feel really good about this effort. I did my very best on it. Is it all that it can be? Not yet, by a long shot. It will need a good month or two to simmer and then I'll have at it with a hacksaw to eliminate any unnecessary words, refine the language, clarify the plot, develop the characters more firmly, and shape it into the thing of beauty I know it can be. I'm eager to begin shopping it out already, because I think the story is a very timely one, but I will wait until I feel it cannot be improved any more in my hands. Then, we'll just have to wait and see what happens to my creative child that I have lovingly birthed in this seven week process.
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