rss
twitter

Monday, June 28, 2010

Slow and Steady...Or Just Make a Run For It

I've considered myself a slow and steady writer for a long time. I wrote my novella for class by writing about a page a day. The longest work I had written prior to a week ago, at 28,000 words, I wrote over about four years. It kept slowly growing as I thought of a new plot idea and went back to it.

In this post I made a goal of writing 750 words a day, with the ultimate goal being finishing the first draft of my WIP by the time I went back to school in September.

I finished the first draft yesterday.

Me, the slow and steady writer who thought 750 words a day was accessible but probably around my max, started coming home from work and writing 1,000 words, then 2,000 words a day, then 3,000. Between Thursday and yesterday I wrote 20,000 words. And then, to my shock, I was done.

And not only was it my first draft, it was my first draft ever of a novel length work. Even if it is absolutely no good, that was a huge step for me.

It has a lot of revising that needs to be done, because I decided to just get it all out on the page and then figure it out from there - but I'm very eager to start it. And throughout this process I've thought of several topics I want to blog about, but I was too caught up with all the writing! So be on the lookout for them.

I think that writing this so quickly is definitely the thing that has shocked me most in my writing journey (which began when I was five!), so what's the most shocking part of yours? Seriously, I want to know!

3 comments:

Misty Waters said...

Congrats! Good luck on the revisions!

Emily White said...

Good for you! The first draft is always bad for everyone.

I'd have to say my most recent shocker has been finishing the total rewrite of my novel in two months. Prior to that, my first book took me five years to complete and the first draft of my second novel took a little over a year. It's nice to know I can finish something in just a couple months and that I'm getting better at the whole process.

L. Hild said...

Thanks Misty! And Emily - isn't it fun to see the process change (and quicken) over time!? Congrats on finishing your rewrite so quickly!

Post a Comment