Monday, January 10, 2011

Guys... Guess What?

Happy Monday everyone... I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Yes, today is the big reveal that I promised last Friday, although if you've spotted my sidebar, it may not be that much of a surprise... but here goes ;)

I've finished the first draft of my first novel!

Yes... two years of blood, sweat and tears, but I finally wrote the last 15k on Monday, January 3rd, 2011, after waking up in a panic after my bout with the flu during the holidays.

It's clocked in at 95,977 words, 367 pages double spaced.

Um... yeah... it's a little longer that I had originally anticipated (80k), and needs some major editing and lots of rewriting, but figuratively speaking, it's finished.

In early December, I thought I was only 4k away, but the novel needed a lot more than that to wrap it up.

And now it's sitting and marinating while I do some research. Yup, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about this week, I hope you'll join me on Wednesday and Friday.

How about you guys? Any news... writing or otherwise?



30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!

I recently finished a draft and I have another wip that I set aside that I'm going to revise and edit soon.

Touch of Ink said...

Yay! Congratulations!

I'm turning my rough (really rough) draft over to my crit group tomorrow. It has so many continuity errors from editing that I despair of ever finding and fixing them all.

Stephanie Thornton said...

Congratulations!

I'm tweaking the first chunk of a first draft and then I'm going to plug away at the dreaded middle. I'm kind of looking forward to it!

Lindsay N. Currie said...

Oh my gosh, congratulations!! That's such an accomplishment. I just passed the 50 page mark on my current co-authored WIP so I'm feeling pretty chipper myself:)

The Happy Whisk said...

Simply fantastic.

Joanne said...

Congratulations! I always enjoy the revision stage, layering the story as I go ... Best wishes, raising my coffee cup in a toast to your manuscript ... Cheers!

Talli Roland said...

Wooooo! Massive congrats - what an accomplishment! Hope you're going to celebrate in style!

Meredith McCardle said...

Congratulations!! That's a wonderful accomplishment! :)

Wendy Lu said...

Oh wow, that's really excellent news indeed! :D Congrats! And I'm glad I was able to motivate you to return to your journals. Of course, now that I'm in college I'm not able to write as much as I did when I was younger. But I try to write a little bit each day, even if it's just a paragraph.

~TRA

http://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com

Southpaw said...

Wow from 4k to 90+k is awesome in such a short time. Dedication and perseverance is a wonderful thing. Congratulations.

Stephanie Lorée said...

This is inspirational. I've been following your blog, through your struggles, while I struggled (and am struggling) through similar things. You make me want to finish my book. :)

Big congratulations!

Melissa Gill said...

Congratulations! That's such an accomplishment. Way to go.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

That's awesome! Doesn't it feel good to type those final words?

Unknown said...

Don't worry, you will edit out a whole lot of that. I had over 100k and now have 80k. Good work - keep at it. Thanks for stopping by.

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

That is soooo fantastic! a HUGE congrats to you!

MTeacress said...

Wonderful! Is this the first book you've ever finished? That's a fantastic accomplishment. :)

Colene Murphy said...

Oh hurray!!! Congratulations! Best feeling ever!!! (well, I imagine getting an agent would rank right up there to but splitting hairs now ;)

Alleged Author said...

Woohoo!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! That's actually a really good word count. The publisher I work for wants submissions between 90,000 to 120,000 words. Now you can have fun polishing it up before you send it out into the world.

Anonymous said...

What an accomplishment! Congrats on finishing your first draft.

vic caswell said...

congrats!!! that's superawesome!!!!! :)

Jai Joshi said...

Oh wow, congratulations! The feeling of finishing a manuscript is so special, I just love it.

Don't forget to do something special to reward yourself and savour the moment!

Jai

Jill Hathaway said...

CONGRATS!

That's a huge accomplishment!

Demitria said...

Congrats! Don't worry about the length, mine is 96,000 and my agent said that was good.

demitrialunetta.blogspot.com

Tamara Narayan said...

Yeah! Good for you. The first draft of my first book was a whopping 180K! I thought I was ready to query once I had it down to 132K. Ha, ha on me. Now it's fashionably trim at 88K.

Happy Editing!

Shari said...

Congratulations!!!! It's a great feeling to finish.

I gave you a blog award. Come over to sharibird.blogspot.com to get it.

Jamie Gibbs said...

MASSIVE congratulations to you! At almost 100K, you're gonna need some strong binding once that thing hits publication, hehe.

Julie Musil said...

*throws confetti* Woo hoo! That's awesome!

It's so nice to revise once you have a finished product to work with. This is awesome news, and a grand way to start the new year. Congratulations.

WritingNut said...

Thank you all so much for the kind words and encouragement! :)

Nicole said...

That's really awesome :) Well done!! As for the length increasing don't worry - all my re-writes made the word count go up and down like a yoyo and it ended up a bit below the original 116k

Can't wait to read the finished product!

The Arrival, on Amazon NOW!
www.damselinadirtydress.com