The Year of the Edit.

 

IT’S FINISHED!!!! Well at least the first draft of my epic science-fiction novel is finished. Last Thursday I wrote the final words of a first draft I started writing for in November 2011 for National Novel Writing Month. So it took me – rummages for calculator – 771 days to write 214,935 words, an average of 278 words a day. 

My initial reaction to finishing was not jubilation, but sadness, as the story my imagination had been developing for so long had ended. I really enjoyed the characters I created and their adventures. I am going to miss them. It feels a bit like finishing Uni. Considering how the novel ended, a sequel is not probable. Or then again…

The Year of the Edit.

 

Thus begins the year of the edit. I have decided not to write anything new until I have edited all the writing I have stacked up to edit and redraft. There’s another novel, Stalking Tigers, which I was halfway through redrafting when a new idea for a story struck that I just had to stop and write. Stalking Tigers is 128,000 words. 

And then there is the manuscript that got me writing, my apocalyptic vision of Australia's near future: I'll Just Sit Here and Watch it on My TV. I wrote it 12 years ago, before I had done any writing courses. From memory, it is about 120,000 words.

And finally, there are the first drafts of a 12,500 word novella and a 6,800 word short story. 

I have decided to work from shortest to longest and start with the short story. It will be interesting to see whether it increases or decreases in size. I’m betting on an increase. 

Other Writing Activities.

 

I wrote another article for Divine last week and submitted it on Friday. I also did my first critique of a story in about a year and emailed it to the author yesterday.