My enormously exciting news is that I have finally, at long last, after five months of steady work, finished my first draft of the paranormal romance crime thriller.
Clocking in at 100,071 words, it is finally done. Well, not done, because I still have massive amounts of editing to do, but considering all the half-finished manuscripts littering my hard drive the past few years, it’s a huge accomplishment for me. Have to celebrate the wins when you get them.
I took a week off from writing even though it made me itchy and worked on my reading. I have an enormous list of books to catch up on and some more pre-orders on the way. This weekend I thought I had enough space from it so I compiled my Scrivener file into a Kindle ebook and read through the whole book.
I thought I had been good at editing as I went along but other than a few typos I was mostly just good at proofreading and producing clean copy. I can really see the split between when I was working on it just once a week while writing another project; and when I really became immersed in the story and the world and began working on it every day. There is a subtle shift in tone.
That said, I think the first draft is not terrible; what mainly needs work is fixing up the copy, have more show and tell and less body language, and I need to totally gut the first half to make it align with the second half. There are a few gems that I will keep but I need to do some serious rewriting.
I think I need another week off from it to regroup though. I am far too obsessed and fixated on it right now. The second half is much better than the first half but like I say you can tell when I found my footing, got to know my characters and warmed to the plot. Life of a pantser. But I find I am looking forward to editing. Drafting was a nerve-wracking rollercoaster, like diving off a cliff; editing will be polishing the turd into gold.
I may start working on some short stories although mainly I need to clear my brain space, which is hard to do because I’ve worked so hard on that thing. I’ve decided I will also purchase Atticus for formatting, hire a cover artist from Fiverr and hire an editor, after I finish my own rewrites. This is my baby and I want to do this self publishing thing right, even if I end up losing money, which I probably will. It’s also a passion and I have to invest in it.
In other news, I decided I will close down my Patreon in June once the serialized version of my story ends. I only ever got two patrons and I think it was hard to get people interested in the paywall. From July on out I will focus on my Ko-fi and a serialized fiction site like Kindle Vella or Radish Fiction and post my fiction for free to build up a fan base. The plan is to keep on submitting short stories, then post the rejections to Ko-fi, hopefully compiling enough to publish in a collection.
Until next time, friends! I finally finished something for once… I cannot believe it. I am still pinching myself. It’s been years in the making and you can do it too.
Tea While Writing 