Thursday, November 27, 2008

Two Magical Words

So I wrote two words last night at about 11pm, each one only three letters long.

THE END

Woohoo!!

The novel comes in at 103,500 words. It's a supernatural thriller. Am I happy with it? Yes. Absolutely. The story feels complete. The ending just. It's been a hell of a journey. My writing has improved so much since I started, so I've had to go back over the older sections and edit them. Even now I'm tempted to give it one more edit, but no, not just yet.

My next step is to get copies out to the two critics I've got lined up, who will give it a solid going over. I've told them I want, need, their honesty. Forget they know me and be brutal (but loving; I'm a delicate wee thing).

That's a spooky thing. Writing The End was kind of spooky (here's this world full of characters I know and love and hate so well, and it's time to draw the curtain on them. I didn't want to), but now I have to show someone real my novel and get them to pull it apart and tell me where/why it doesn't work, or what has to be improved.

Yeah, that's spooky.

Once my friends have given me their critiques, I'll send the manuscript to an editing agency and have a professional tidy up done, too. Or maybe I'll look at getting that done now.

Anyway, in the meantime, I need to write a synopsis and start the job of working out how to get the thing published... I want to hunt down an agent, I think.

And I've also got a head full of short stories that are demanding I write them out, so I will take a breather from novel writing for a few months and clear out my head a little. I haven't written a short story for nearly 10 months. I'm looking forward to it.

But that next novel is blazing away already and if I'm not careful, it will soon blind me from those shorts I need to write. That novel is already written; I just need to add the bits in so it works as a trilogy.

Phew, the keyboard's smokin'...

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