So I Wrote THE END on a 500-page Novel … Now What?

On January 26th, 2015, I finished the rough draft of an original novel for the first time since 199-something.

Yeah.

That’s like SEVENTEEN years in there. That’s like … half my lifetime in there.

Almost the entire purpose of this blog for a long while now has been to get me to this point.  After college, and marriage, and motherhood, and ten years of fanfiction, and beginning this particular book in June of 2013 … on January 26th, 2015, it finally happened.

I. FINISHED. IT.

Granted, “finished” is a relative term.  I still have to edit it heavily, flesh out certain scenes, make sure everything is neat and tidy, but the hardest and longest part of creating a novel is DONE.  The skeleton and raggedy bunch of muscles that is the plot and characters is all there.  Barfed out on the pages and IT EXISTS.

My initial feeling was euphoria, elation.  After all, the other six people in my writing group had all at least finished the first draft of one novel, if not TWO novels each, in the time it took me to write this thing.

But mine is 143,000 words long.  Theirs tended to land somewhere in the 50-60,000 words range.  Regardless, it made me antsy to finally complete MINE.  So, when I did, the relief was amazing.  It felt … awesome.  I felt … FREE.  Light.  Like I might just float away without the weight of this giant unfinished story hanging over me night and day.

And then, I went on an incredible vacation to Universal Studios Florida and spent three days pretending the world of Harry Potter was totally real.

I came back from that vacation completely motivated and inspired to continue toward my goal of becoming a published, if not eventually full-time, writer.  I hit the ground running as soon as I got home.

I arranged my rough draft into a nice, neat document and uploaded it onto Lulu.com so I can order a real printed copy all for myself.  Both because that makes it really seem like a REAL book, and for ease of the first-pass editing read-through, so that I can experience it the way a reader really would, and won’t let the screen blind me.  I’m just waiting for my awesome cover to be resized, and I’ll be ordering the copy next week!

The plan originally was to let it sit a few months before editing.  But as I compiled the rough draft into something comprehensible, I realized that for almost the entire book, I no longer had any idea what I had written!  Whether that’s because I wrote the thing over a 19 month period (I can hardly remember what happened last week!), or because most of it was written in a dazed craze over some NaNoWriMo event or another, I don’t know.  But what I do know is that 1) I hardly remembered any of it and 2) what I did take the time to read over while compiling, I LIKED.

I ACTUALLY LIKED IT.

I was happy at THE END because it was OVER.  I thought I wanted to be done with it for awhile.  But only a few days away from it, and the realization that I didn’t really remember it, made me anxious to actually read it all for real, all together, as a real and actual book.  And then the fact that I LIKED what I read was just icing on the cake.  Because when I finished it, I really wasn’t sure it made any damn sense at all.  It FELT like a terrible, convoluted, disjointed mess.

But you know, I don’t think it’s that at all!

And I’m anxious now to get to work really polishing it up and making it shine!  I’ve enrolled in Angela James’ Before You Hit Send workshop, so I hope to be editing at the same time in order to incorporate any tips I learn from there while they’re still fresh.  The start of that workshop can’t come soon enough!

Because that’s the other thing.  I thought I’d be happy to have a break after I completed that monster of a novel.  I had planned on FINALLY playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. That was to be my reward for finishing, after all.  And I was going to FINALLY organize the storage areas of the house, because they’ve been neglected for years.  And I was going to write the rough draft of a little novella I’ve an idea for about a space pirate (The Misadventures of Zachary Crowne) … but now …

Now I just want to get back into an epic, 500-page long novel.

I still haven’t touched Dragon Age. I’ve barely worked on re-organizing the storage rooms. I just stare at the screen when I try to write the novella.

Primus won’t leave me alone.  It wants to be edited.  It wants to be REALLY done.

And my epic new adult fantasy beckons.

Especially in light of the Harry Potter trip.  “Come back to me,” it whispers. “I will consume years of your life just like Primus did. I have dragons and hippogriffs, remember how fun it was to write me?”

The temptation is hard to resist.  I’m going to try and hold off editing Primus until I at least get my physical copy in hand.  *beats off editing muse with a stick*  ….Yes, there are muses for editing.  No, I didn’t realize that, either, till recently.  I’m going to do some plotting work on the novella.  I think that will help with the blankness.  I have NO IDEA where it’s going.  I need to find the overarching purpose of the book and go from there.  That should help give me direction and blow a hole in the writer’s block!

So yeah, I finished a 500-page novel eleven days ago that took me 19 months to finish and was the first original work I’d completed in 17 years. I’m over that hump now.  That’s one HUGE goal I can check off. This one thing has made me feel more like a “legitimate” writer than anything else I’ve accomplished so far in my writing journey, and I’m rewarding myself with champagne and a massage, if not video-gaming.

I thought I would rejoice in this newfound freedom, but really all I want to do already is go right back to writing another epic 500-page novel!

Huh.

Imagine that!