Woot!
I've finished the first draft of my second novel. I'm really happy about it, but it's not quite that same level of excitement that I had the first time around.
I think the difference is this time, I knew I could do it. It's like the first time I raced 5 km. I didn't know I could do it before. I thought I might just pass out before the finish line. But I made it to the finish line before I passed out. And then there was this high that just followed me around the rest of the day. (I was a bit hyper...and probably annoying to the rest of my cross country team).
The next time I did it, I was still excited to finish, but not as excited as the first time. You really never get that first time feeling back.
I'm really not surprised that the feeling was different this time. At the same time, I'm actually a little bit proud of myself. An author whose blog I followed once wrote about how important it is to finish that first novel. How you can learn so much from it.
Well, he was right.
Even without trying, I learned a lot. I learned not to freak out about word count (I freaked out about word count in my novel--I ended up with this totally random detour that has nothing to do with my novel. It's just to make me have to revise and edit more). I learned about routine, filtering (which is bad!), and not getting caught up in scenes.
I learned a lot. So this book has a lot more potential than my last one. I really can't wait to see where it ends up when I finally get to revise and edit the hell out of it.
What did your first book teach you?
I've finished the first draft of my second novel. I'm really happy about it, but it's not quite that same level of excitement that I had the first time around.
I think the difference is this time, I knew I could do it. It's like the first time I raced 5 km. I didn't know I could do it before. I thought I might just pass out before the finish line. But I made it to the finish line before I passed out. And then there was this high that just followed me around the rest of the day. (I was a bit hyper...and probably annoying to the rest of my cross country team).
The next time I did it, I was still excited to finish, but not as excited as the first time. You really never get that first time feeling back.
I'm really not surprised that the feeling was different this time. At the same time, I'm actually a little bit proud of myself. An author whose blog I followed once wrote about how important it is to finish that first novel. How you can learn so much from it.
Well, he was right.
Even without trying, I learned a lot. I learned not to freak out about word count (I freaked out about word count in my novel--I ended up with this totally random detour that has nothing to do with my novel. It's just to make me have to revise and edit more). I learned about routine, filtering (which is bad!), and not getting caught up in scenes.
I learned a lot. So this book has a lot more potential than my last one. I really can't wait to see where it ends up when I finally get to revise and edit the hell out of it.
What did your first book teach you?
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