My last post was a month ago when the contest first started and it has been an arduous trek.
It was pretty often that I'd wake up, glance at the clock blinking a neon green 3am, wipe the sleep from my face, nudge my sleeping computer awake, tap in my password, and then promptly fall back asleep. Five hours later, I'd be on the bus headed back to work. Thems were long days.
Thankfully, it's over now, but as grueling as it was, I'm super happy that I pushed myself to produce a submittable (though unlikely winning) manuscript.
I wrote a first draft of my story for NaNoWriMo. The resulting 65k words were a mishmash of awful words and unruly plot lines. I made a few changes, hacked some excess, and found myself with 3k worth of material. The rest had to go.
ABNA helped me get the rest of the manuscript's structure in place. It's nothing to behold, as there are still many, many areas in need of repair, but it got me back to the 51k area.
So while it may feel great having that first draft done, keep an open mind about it. Because like a trite character, it may get the cut.
Throwing out 62k words felt bad. Did I just waste all my time?! Well, yes and no. The first draft left me with a great understanding of my characters, world, and story direction. None of it was right in the first draft, but the correction for draft two was immense, and I'm happy with that.
Coming soon, I'll post an excerpt of my manuscript.
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