Yay! (progress of novel)

[mary_j_59]

I still have a long way to go, but I finished the first draft of Honor this morning. It ended up just under 80 thousand words - so just about twice as long as I expected it to be. And I learned an awful lot from the process. More on that later.

Rewriting starts tomorrow; I have to rewrite one chapter pretty extensively and clean up two or three others slightly before I have a really good draft. Then I can start looking for agents.

Comments

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[puckling.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Puckling! I'll keep you posted on progress-

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

Yay! Well done :)

I'm probably too late, but if I were you, I'd set it aside for at least a week before starting the rewrites.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Jon! As to getting a sense of the novel as a whole, I'm sure you're right. But - I wrote it piecemeal, using Scrivener (the best novel-writing software ever!), and I knew some time ago that this particular chapter would have to be rewritten, based on what I'd learned about the characters and their situation.

I just rewrote it today - it may need a bit more refining, but I will wait a while to do that. There are just one or two more additions I'll want to make to a couple of other chapters - and then, I promise, I will stop tinkering, send it out to my beta readers, and try to see what I've got. I'll definitely leave it alone while waiting for feedback.

But, in the meantime - I can hardly believe I got this far! :)

[eeyore6771.livejournal.com]

Sounds great! Have you given any hints about what it's about? I haven't been good at keeping up with everyone's posts, so I may have missed it.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Pat! Actually, you can find the first two chapters here on my blog; just click the tags "science fiction" or "original fiction". What it's about is a bit hard to describe, but here is the one - sentence summary I came up with:
A boy becomes a traitor and thief in order to keep a promise he considers sacred."

I'm afraid I can't tell you too much more at this point. I've been working on this book for nearly three years, and I'm amazed I have a finished draft - it's Bern a lifelong dream to write a novel.