The Novel is Finished

About six weeks ago, at the start of nanowrimo, I wrote my first words for the novel I’m still affectionately calling ‘Novel #4’.

Today I wrote the final words*. All told, during these six weeks I’ve written 126 000 words, a few more than the 100 000 I had been aiming towards.

Why did the novel end up a bit longer than I had planned? Honestly I think it was because I didn’t want the story to end. I know how it needed to end but I became too attached to some of the characters (not Wanderer specifically, he’s the backbone through the story arc driving the world he lives in but his role is to serve as the rock against which the other characters who will come into and out of his life throw themselves against). But many of those other characters, I think, drive this novel forward. And a couple of them steal the show from Wanderer and these I became particularly attached to.

Anyways I managed it and finally found my way to the end and I’m thrilled.

For those unfamiliar with Wanderer his story begins in “The Prophet” (originally published in the End of Days 2 anthology) and it, in many ways, ends with the story “The End of the Road” which was my first print story published (by Not One of Us Magazine).

* Of course this is only the first draft albeit a better first draft than the other three novels I’ve written to this point. I’ll start rereading it over the holidays while also working on a few stories that have been waiting impatiently for me to get back to them. I also need to write book 2 of the Lazy Designer series. Still I plan to have Novel #4 ready to submit to publishers by early spring.
** Why the picture of a milkshake maker? That’s my reward to myself for finishing the novel.