Finish Line

96,280 words. 379 pages. 50 chapters plus an introduction. And I call this monstrosity The Return of the Mourning Dove.

That's right, I finished the first draft of my novel not five minutes ago!

It feels good to be done, although I worry that most of what I've produced is garbage and unsalvagable.

But on the plus side, this has got to be the fastest I've ever written a book (not that I've produced too many). I think I started in the last week of July and had set a deadline of finishing by the end of September, so I'm actually two weeks early.

So what now? Now's the easiest part of writing for me: the cooling off period. I'm going to set the manuscript aside for a few months. That way I can come back to it with a critical eye ... say, around Christmas or so. I already know that two scenes have to be completely redone and one has to be added. And I'm worried that all sorts of plotholes lurk within its pages.

But I gotta say, it still feels pretty good to be done.