So … yesterday something rather magical happened, fuelled by Nespresso, the remnants of a hangover from the night before, as well as lack of food: I finished The Book! Working title/s: A Greek Vintage / Under a Cretan Sky / My Invincible Summer / An Invincible Summer … I will be having a vote on this in the next few weeks but if you prefer one of these now, and feel like being kind, please do let me know which you like.

The weekend was a blur of typing and lack of sleep (with a few hours off on the Saturday in which to gain succour in the form of wine with friends), it was something reminiscent of my varsity days where I’d pull all nighters to finish English literature essays, and somehow I managed to speed race through the last 9,000 words … not realising of course that it was the last 9,000 words, you understand. Just knowing that I was near The End, and wasn’t about to let a little thing like being faint from hunger get in the way.

To be honest, I wonder why I never tried this approach before … not the lack of food thing, which if you saw my thighs you know would be wishful thinking at best, but the not being sensible thing which I kept trying to achieve, like pace myself, eat, wash my hair, because apart from a little lapse between the ages 25 and 28 I’ve never been accused of being sensible before, so why bother with it all now?

Much more liberating I can assure you. Though exhausting …  at the risk of offending new mothers, that is sort of what I looked like yesterday … barely able to keep my eyes open, but very happy. I would have put up a picture of myself to show you just how tired I looked, but figured that would have just been cruel … for you guys, no one needs to see that.

After it was done, and the husband took a nap. Note I said the husband … we have come to the conclusion that we are in need of a wife, particularly if this writing malarkey is to continue as it inevitably will, it unfortunately, despite all the injury, the descents into madness complete with voices in the head, seems want to stick. So while we love each other dearly and wouldn’t change the other for the world, it sure would be nice if we had someone around to do the laundry and feed us … but sigh, we aren’t Amish, so on we truck.

Anyway, about The Book … it finished at a lovely 72,000 words which is about average novel length though I fully expect this number to whittle down, then grow again as I flesh out and unflesh certain tricky bits, as it is very much a first draft, meaning that it will need a lot of work before it is anything resembling what I am ready to unleash on the world as yet.

The really bizarre thing is that the editing part is the stage I am most excited for, I’m excited to fix all the red underlined bits, as well as to get into the meatier aspects of plot, pacing, dialogue etc …. but that may just be the sleep talking. The actually having some for a change, you see.

From there it will be to start on the second book, working title is Glimpse which if all goes well I will finish this year as well. You see I made the rookie mistake of telling my editor/first beta reader (aka as my best friend) the idea for this one, which she loved, so upon hearing that I was finished The Book, she has very kindly given me this week off, but has let me know that she fully expects the first chapter of Glimpse by the end of next week … I believe she was only half joking.

Uncategorized A Greek Vintage Book editing Finished book first draft First manuscript writing