I got stuck into it nice and early today, and I’m proud to say that the first draft of my first ever novel, is now complete! Exactly in the timeframe I was shooting for, too.

The grand total word count is 121,601, at least according to yWriter. This is an incredible milestone. Not long ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed I could actually pull something like this off. I thought I was far too lazy to keep chipping away at something so enormous. And yet, I did 121k in just two months.

Now, by all accounts, the best thing to do is let a fresh batch of novel cool for at least a month before starting on the editing. It makes sense, because I view my current novel as a piece of crap not worth touching right now anyway. In a month or so, I will be able to view it objectively and edit it as such. I’ve never edited a story before (presumably why I was always marked badly in creative writing at school), so I’ll be borrowing a book about it from the library. I have the gist of what I should be doing, but mainly plotwise. The quality of writing, I will likely need help with to some extent. Probably one of my biggest pitfalls is that I don’t read much fiction. It’s pretty good for originality (no plagiarism from me), but very bad for sentence construction, ideas for similes and metaphors, dialogue, that kind of thing. I think I did a decent job for someone who read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley a few years ago, then didn’t pick up a single piece of fiction until midway through November this year (I read Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty, by the way).

But anyway, it’ll still be quite some time before this novel is ready for the public eye. But I will keep you updated.

Nevertheless, I am about 98% complete. It feels so close, and yet it’s so hard to figure it out. See, I’ve outlined up to the end of this scene I am now writing. But I need to work out what happens afterwards, which is probably an important part of the meshing of the story. Well, we’ll see what happens.

Haven’t worked on the comic in a few days, sadly. But once the novel is out of the way it’ll be much easier to work on.

Anyway, I will try to recover the post as it was stored in my fallible human hard drive (also known as my “brain”). Ahem.

So, in keeping with my vow to finish the first draft of my novel before New Year’s, Drawing the Line is coming to its non-red-herring climax. Hurrah! Basically a chapter to go, or around 4,000 words. If I keep up what I did today, 1.8k, I’ll be done on the 30th. I will be finished by New Years.

Having said that, my climax is really hard to write now. My characters have developed beyond their original motivations when I planned this scene in detail two long months ago. Le sigh. Well, filling plot holes is a job for future drafts. My main mission is to get this junk out, despite my utter annoyance with it. I am so sick of writing this novel, you have no idea. I like my characters, but I am sick of describing all their actions and thoughts. They’re real enough in my head now that it seems like they’re lazy in that they’re making me write their stupid story, instead of them doing it.

On the NaNoWriMo forums, people kept talking about their characters as real people that had personalities and spoke to them in their head. I’m starting to understand it. But my characters are uncooperative. They keep willing me to stop writing about them doing heroic things. They just want to run away and hide. Screw you guys!

Do I sound crazy yet? I think writers need to have a crazy streak… writing begets crazy, and crazy begets writing. The circle of storytelling spins for eternity. Or something.

Natalie has started up another blog. Doesn’t that just excite you no end?

…Okay, you didn’t have to put it that way…

Look, I know I have not been known to keep up a blog, but this time it’s going to be different (groans are heard)! This time, this blog is going to bring together the vast majority of my bajillions of projects that I’m always working on simultaneously, and yet seeming to get nothing done.

Things I’ve been doing recently include:

• NaNoWriMo
• NaNoFiMo
• Inventing a new webcomic and/or published comic (an actual 24-page comic book. Something I’ve never attempted before)
• Started up this blog (duh)
• Have plans to make a new website centred around the Illawarra Region that I somehow expect to update regularly with journalistic-esque articles (yeah, right)
• Have been working as a freelance Web Developer/Designer, my recent work being the website for Taren Point Titans Junior Footy Club

So basically, this blog will help keep you up to date with what I’m doing, and also help me to be able to think about these things in a more organised manner. That’s one of my main problems, I think. Too disorganised.

Okay, so expect to see lots of junk posted on here, frequently! In theory.

Natalie out.