I Finished My First Novel, Guys

Sorry, I haven't blogged in, like, forever and twenty one days, but here I am! I'M ALIVE! (Happy [late, I guess] Halloween!) Unfortunately, this will be a rather short blog post. I will not be posting a book of the week or a song, it is simply being dedicated to the completion of my first novel.

Okay, guys! Light and Lividity Book One: Lux first draft is now complete at 63,855 glorious painstakingly written words! Thank you, Jackson and Matt, for providing encouragement and advice! It is currently with my critique partners, Sadie, Matt, and Jackson. I am "anxiously awaiting their response(s);" and maybe in a couple days to my totally awesome Novels and Publication teacher, Mrs. Pullman. Until then, I will be starting a new project which I am very excited about, however, I will not be revealing any information about it at the moment. I'm shooting for over 100K words. Wish me luck. Oh, beloved yet simultaneously cursed pacing; be warned, I will conquer you yet!!!

I have learned so much from writing this book. Honestly, when I heard other published authors say that there's no better way to learn how to write than to actually write and finish a book, I didn't believe them. Well, guess what? I must now wear the Cone of Shame, for their advice is invaluable. First: Pacing. I have only scratched the surface of that concept, but the more I write the more it makes sense. Sadly, when I first began to discover it, I was over halfway done with Lux and therefore, I feel that my understanding of it will grow more fully with my next project. Second: I can actually do it. I can legitimately finish an entire novel. I cannot begin to describe my happiness about this topic. I have been trying to finish a book since I was ten. Ten. And, finally, four years later, I've done just that. Third: Writing isn't always easy. In fact, half of this book was written when the last thing I wanted to do was write. Sometimes you just have to buckle down and do it. BICHOK (But In Chair, Hands On Keyboard). The only way to be a writer, is to write. It's as simple as that. It's also not this fun enjoyable thing everybody talks about. It's also not always necessarily happy. You know the moments I'm talking about. Obviously these aren't the only things I learned, but these are the really big, big ones. I mean, you take this virtual wealth of knowledge and try to condense it down into three. =)

To tell you the truth, the emotions I felt while writing the end were something like: "Really? These scenes that I've been imagining for an entire year, the ones I seriously never thought I'd reach . . . these are the scenes I'm writing right now? Is this for real?" But it was really fun. I really got to make the characters go through a world of hurt (I know, I know, that sounds creepy), but they've progressed so much mentally that I felt almost like a proud parent! And then there was the: "Will this ever end! Will I ever write the epilogue? Just stop, already, yeesh!"

For those who don't know, I got the idea for this book the middle of November of last year. I was sitting in sacrament meeting (IKR? Horrible me, but it's the truth), when this image of a beautiful teenage girl in a flowing white dress, brown hair, and pale green eyes walking through a sunny garden popped into my mind. She walked to a gazebo and sat down. Suddenly a force overtook her and the sun disappeared. Then she blacked out. I was so caught by this, that I took a piece of paper out of and wrote down the scene. This became the beginning of the first chapter. It eventually got cut completely as I started over from scratch, but I still have that piece of paper, and looking back on it, I can see just how much my writing has improved. Seriously, it's like the difference between night and day.

I actually gave up on this book and started a different one. I hated it so much. But then a sudden wave of inspiration started me writing again, and on July 4th of this year, I write the current first words: The demon-like man standing in front of me was nothing like I'd ever seen before . . . So it's taken me almost a year to go through the entire process, but only four months for the first draft. And, given that I took a four month break from the book, only eight months. Anyone wanna bet that my next book will take even less time? But I guess, all in all, an entire year from idea to first draft.

I'm going to start on my new project while I wait for feedback, then comes the revising and editing, revising, and editing, revising and editing, revising and editing . . . . and on and on and on. . . . Then maybe I'll consider submitting to agents. 99.99999999999999% chance I won't get picked up, but might as well try, right? Besides, on my next book, I'll have had practice on querying and I'll probably do better later on.

Well, that's about all for this week.

Till next time! Or next month, whichever comes first. (Only kidding, Matt.)

~Jared