And so… Sunday night around four in the morning… Yes, well: technically it was Monday morning, but still: I finished my first draft – and glory be.

Well, I may have cheated a little, and the last-but-one chapter is a tad disconnected, and the last one is more a loose collection of scenes and questions, begging – amongst other things – to be split in two… And the ending doesn’t have a very definite shape yet.

But hey: it’s a first draft. That’s what first drafts are for, isn’t it? And I finished it.

Hooray.

Now, if all goes well, I mean to let it rest for a whole month. I’m told a month is the time required to grow a fresh pair of eyes, very handy for revision. And it’s true: I don’t have the sense God gave to small green apples, and I’m dreadful at keeping good intentions… On the other hand, I have a good deal of work waiting for me, and books to read, and I’ll have to make it up to all the people I shamefully neglected these past five months – so perhaps my June will be so full that I will have no time to even think of the novel…

So: until July, novel.

But I confess, I’ll miss the heady rush of this last week. Between Saturday and Sunday I wrote some 7500 words – a whole lot for me. It may have been all a little haphazard, but how very exhilarating. Scenes followed scenes, and new ideas, and possibilities, and detours kept cropping up… It may seem far ideal, when one is trying to conclude as fast as possible, but it was quite heady.

Also, it gives me a good headway towards revision, a whole new way to tighten up the middle, and a few threads I want to pursue back – if that makes sense… Oh.

See? There I am, musing on revision already!

Ah well – but this is for July. Right now, let me bask in the afterglow: I’ve finished the first draft.