In Completion of Books

This update is to pass on to the world of Those Who Don't Read This Blog that I have completed, successfully, the first draft of this new version of The Devil Theory. Actually, it's probably the sixth or seventh draft if you count the number of drafts that I threw out, but it's all good in the end. This book is the largest book I've ever written, and if you choose not to count the National Novel Writing Month books that I wrote, it's probably the quickest I've ever written a book. It's 333 pages - "The End" comes at the very bottom of the page. You can fit one more line of writing in before it bleeds over onto the next page. It's 110,327 words, which is over twice the size of a NaNoWriMo book.

I'm feeling good about having finished this book. I've had what feels like a five or six year long case of writer's block. Aside from barely managing to finish the other version of this book that took me two or three years to write, and the NaNoWriMo books that I've written (one book completed, one book almost completed but much shorter than a typical NaNo book because I had about 20,000 words from a previous book I tried and failed to write during the first week and a half of NaNo), I haven't written anything of decent size since I finished Silver Chains in my sophomore year of high school.

Let me tell you, that does not feel very good for any writer. I was beginning to question myself - was I even meant to be a writer? Would I spend the rest of my life struggling to write pure crap and failing? Would I ever get published?

Now that I've finished The Devil Theory, over these few months in summer like I had planned and with almost a whole month that I can use to edit and start querying agents, I'm in a much better place emotionally.

So, these next few weeks will be spent editing. I'm not going to edit the book in proper chapter order because I'm more likely to remember problems in continuity if I'm not reading the book like I'd read any other book. It also lets me view each chapter as a small chunk of writing and work on the prose itself in a manageable amount. I'm also going to be compiling a list of literary agents I plan to query, and I'll be working on writing query letters and getting nice little query packages set up so I can start emailing ze agents.

Wish me luck, guys! I'll try to update more often now that I'm done with the writing. I was avoiding the major websites so I could focus on trying to finish the book - I was writing something like, 15-20 pages a night at the end there. I wrote 19 pages last night (which was technically this morning...the sun was totally up when I finished writing). The only website I've really been updating is Facebook. As I put it to a friend, "I've neglected everything but Facebook - which is my special little way of bragging about myself to the world so I don't get discouraged, writing all alone over here." I do need to feel like I'm doing something that's even a little bit social, around the edges, thus - Facebook. I've spammed all of my friends constantly with book updates. They'll probably be happy that it's over so they stop getting the two or three updates that come in at around 2 am and 4 am and sometimes 6 am.

Anyway, this entry is done for now. I will be back to post more soon.ish. I hope everybody who's not reading me (and those who miraculously are) is having a good week =) Many loves to all of you. Take care!