Saturday, April 14, 2007

5,631 words later and... THE END

Hey all! I was going to post this as an update to my weekend goals post below, but I figured it was important enough to merit a post all on its own.

Yep, I typed "THE END" tonight on my WIP. I thought this would feel like a massive accomplishment, that I would feel great gobs of relief. Champagne corks would fly. Video games would be paused.

But the problem is, it doesn't feel like THE END yet. I have SO MUCH REVISING to do. I mean, so much that I'm afraid to even start reading it all from the beginning. The big story will be fun to fix. I think. But then it's those awful details. Like the fact that a wrote two characters as being married but now they're not married but kinda engaged and so I have to make sure there's never ever any reference to them as husband and wife. And let me tell you, she refers to him as her husband all the time.

That's the kind of stuff that I hate about revising. The little things. Too many little things to list and so you have to comb through the sucker over and over and over again.

*shudder* Maybe I should stop talking about all of that :) It's at this point in the process that I marvel that books ever make it to print. That books out there are consistant, that the plot holds together, that the hero's name is the same throughout (did I mention I'm still thinking of changing some character's names? At least that's just a "find and replace" job!).

So, yeah. Done with the first draft. Terrified to read through it. Afraid it will all be worthless crap. Very afraid of that.

But for tonight it's WOOHOO! And let me tell you, I'm pretty proud of myself for knocking out that 5.5k word count in one afternoon.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations - no matter whether it is the first draft or the last revision, every step is a benchmark.

You made this one, so sit yourself down, pat yourself on the back, and let the story rest.

Good Job!

T.J.

Diana Peterfreund said...

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! YOUR FIRST BOOK! Go celebrate!

Miri said...

Congratulations! That's really amazing! (Don't you love it when you can finish something in a great big push?)

Don't worry about revising for at least a month would be my advice. Celebrate. Work on something else. Let it sit and simmer and start to feel like someone else's work before you start hacking at it with a chainsaw. Celebrate more.

Congrats again!

Carrie Ryan said...

Thanks for the congrats, all! I really appreciate it! Still haven't celebrated yet, but have plans to do that sometime this week! I would usually put it down for a while and let it simmer, but I do know of some big plot issues that I can address now while the story is hot in my head.

Oh, and this is actually the third book I've finished writing. Just the first since I took writing up again last year :) And my first YA. At least right now I'm considering it a YA :)

Yay!!!

lacey kaye said...

Congratulations!!! I totally understand that it doesn't feel like The End, but it's a huge milestone nonetheless! THE END THE END THE END...there, I've celebrated for you!

Unknown said...

Congratulations! I suppose whatever mountain you climb, there's always going to be an even bigger one behind it.

Really boring admin question - is it all one Word file or something?

Erica Ridley said...

Aaaaaaaaahhhh!!!! That's awesome! Yay! Super yay! Can't wait to read it! =)

Carrie Ryan said...

Chloe - that's such the type of question I'd ask! It's all one word file. I have chapter breaks in most of it, but then sort of didn't even bother with that at the end. This is such a sloppy draft that I'll have to do a lot of moving around so it's easier to have it all in one file. I'll probably copy it into a new file titled "draft 2" and make edits on that. That way I'm not really killing all my darlings :) I'm one of those that can't just delete stuff.

Thanks for the congrats!!

Erica Ridley said...

Just popped in to say I'm thinking of you and I hope the revisions are going well! =)