As some of you may remember, I challenged myself to finish the first draft of my manuscript by March 7th. I am here to tell you guys that somehow I pulled this off. *throws confetti and binder clips into the air*
Later today I have great ambitions called going to OfficeMax, getting the manuscript printed, and buying special office supplies so I can rip it to shreds in a month. It will be awesome.
For a little background, this is the first novel length manuscript that I have actually finished. I'm astounded and impressed at the same time. And really happy.
The original draft of my WIP was actually written in 2008 during NaNoWriMo, but it was really more like a glorified outline than a draft because it sucked. A lot. So last August I trashed it and started re-writing the entire thing, which is hopefully a thousand times better now. If nothing else, I can safely say that the melodrama and injury count have gone up exponentially.
Anyway, I thought it would be kind of cool to make a Wordle of the entire manuscript for everyone's entertainment. If you've never heard of Wordle, it's a generator makes a cloud based on word frequency in a text (this is, of course, minus common words like "the"). Note the very large names of my characters, the fact that I apparently talk about eyes a lot, and the random flowers interspersed between other words.
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| I kind of wonder why I apparently used "one" so often. Heh, I must have had a wonderful reason. |
Wasn't that exciting? Now I'm going to throw stats at you. They're not that interesting, I guess, but I kind of want to record them for posterity.
Working Title: Kai Story Part 1
Genre: YA (Epic?) Fantasy
Total Word Count: 103,559
Chapters: 23
Average Chapter Length: 4,503
Different Point-of-Views: 3
Months Worked On: 6-ish
Awesome Songs That Helped: You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring, Monster by Skillet, Devour by Shinedown, Beautiful Bride by Flyleaf, Nothing and Everything by Red, Rolling in the Deep by Adele, Blinding by Florence + The Machine, and Decode by Paramore.
So, what about you guys? Have you ever finished a novel length manuscript? Or are you puttering away at it right now? Tell me in the comments--let's commiserate together!
10 comments:
Congratulations! you did it! Now go an enjoy Portland.
This is so awesome! Congratulations (again)!
What was your writing process like? How did you find the time to write?
I've never finished a novel length manuscript. I haven't finished anything since my sophomore year of college. It's truly awful. I have all these ideas but I have the hardest time following through.
I shall! :D
Thank you again! *virtual hugs everywhere*
I think the most important step to finishing something big is forcing yourself to write everyday. It helps create a mindset that's a little easier to click on then just writing whenever there's time. Then it's a whole lot easier to be productive in shorter periods of time. :) I kind of got to this point where I was consciously or subconsciously thinking about the story at all times.
Oh, I have so many unfinished manuscripts! In fact, I think this is the only thing I've finished that hasn't been for school. >_> It might have something to do with mindset again though. Up until now, I've been writing strictly for fun, but this time I was very much I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS. Try setting yourself a definite goal!
I'm loving Adele and Paramore has been my favorite for sooooo long. So happy for you. I'm trying to do the same this year. Wish me luck.
Max, I wish you all of the luck in the world. Really. :3
Congratulations on finishing--that's so exciting! And good luck with revisions! When I finished my draft in January, I felt kind of like I didn't know what to do with myself because I had been working on it for so long. It was kind of like in college when you finish your last final and realize you don't have to study anymore, and you wonder what you ever did before all that studying. Well, except that writing a book is a lot more fun than studying for finals.
Thanks! Oh, and I so feel that way right now! I didn't write last night and it was pretty much the strangest thing ever. Perfect metaphor you've got there. :)
Yay! Can I throw staples at you? Or shoot staples at you? that would be cool right? lol
I can't tell you how proud of you I am that you finished. I can't wait for you to get back so we can talk about this!
I'd prefer if we could avoid the whole shooting staples bit. :P Now you just need to hurry up and join me here in Finished Land!
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