First Draft Complete!

It was a doozie of a day before the clock struck 12 o’clock but we carry on. If you’d seen my instagram story on Monday you can probably take a good guess as to what I’m about to say but here we go, I officially finished the first draft of my book! I have actually written a full length novel. Now don’t go getting to excited I still have to edit it a few hundred times, and its got more typos than I can count, but it exists! 


The process of writing this book has been absolutely incredible. Radically different from any other writing project I’ve done. To start with, I finished it in record time, that I’m sure I’ll never accomplish again. For five days a week starting in March I’ve written for close to six hours a day. The goal was always to hit 1000 words a day. Sometimes I’d hit it and then go another mile, and others days I wouldn’t even hit triple digits. But having a goal in mind, paired with oodles of self compassion, made for an amazing enjoyable time writing. 


I cannot even find the words to explain how excited I am to share this story with you all. I’m about to embark on the next scary stage of the writing process, where I hand over my first draft to beta readers for feedback. I’ve got four people lined up to read it for me and I am overjoyed excited and equally nail bitting nervous. But that comes with the territory of being an artist, or creative of any kind including writing, you have to endure the terror of being known to be known. 


It’s this funny thing about artistry, where you desperately want to have your work seen or read, and at the same time would be happy just to have it exist at all. It’s the difference between wanting to stay in the back row to observe and also wanting to be the one of stage. It’s simultaneous, for me at least. 


My desire and identity as an artist pushes on the rest of my personality, it’s the strangest thing. It wouldn’t be out of character for me to move to small town, become the librarian and never be heard from again. While at the same time, I’d very much like to have the stories I’ll eventually write to be in said library. It’s a funny thing, where I’d like the peace of remaining a mystery to all, and also want catastrophically to have my art seen and hopefully help some people. 


Because the fact of the matter is I wrote this story for myself more than anything, but I know I’m not the only one out there that needs to hear the world explained this way. I wrote it for myself, not because its the kind of thing I’d like to read, but because it’s the kind of thing I needed to read. It’s the story I’ve been trying to tell myself for a long time, and it’s the one that came tumbling out. My head feels emptier, like I’ve let something go that I just can’t put my finger on. It’s a release that just isn’t quite as satisfying as I thought it would be. 


Anyway I’ll quit rambling. I’ll still be coming at you with more of my writing shenanigans and saga, but while my readers are reading I’m taking a break. I’ve gotta let it marinate if you know what I mean. In the mean time, I’m going to get some much needed painting done. I’ve kinda already started planning another book to write next, but I gotta find some chill and just rest that part of my brain. So on to painting to occupy my creative mind. 


Thanks for coming along on the journey and thanks in advance to continuing on with me into the next stages of writing a book. As always I’ll be back with more insights into the creative process next week, and I hope you have a good one! :) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

september 1st

September 1st, its the beginning of things. It’s the beginning of the end of the year. At least in my head September has always felt like the beginning of the end. I’m happy to know that the sweltering heat is nearly past and its almost sweater time. I like the fall, mostly because it feels like the rest before the rest, it feels like the closest to what my heart looks like, but partly I like the fall because I like the word falling.   This week I did what I could, which doesn’t look like much but I ate well and washed my face often and I tried.  I got back into the studio yesterday and was immediately overwhelmed. To start with my work space was a mess, as it has been for months, and finally yesterday was the day I couldn’t take it anymore and tidied up the table that serves as my workstation. It was probably 20 minutes of finding homes for things and trying to remember how I had had it organized in the first place. But it was 20 minutes well spent, because at end not eve...
Read more

Learning

Over the years I’ve learned many things about myself and how I function. For example: if I need to force myself to wash my face I put on make up, because I figured out that the need to not sleep in my make up supersedes my laziness. I’ve discover lots of what I call hacks in my own functioning. As I’ve written about before I grew up struggling with depression, so one of my biggest challenges, even when I don’t feel depressed, is to get motivated. So I’ve found some of my own personal quirks that I can almost trick myself into doing the healthy things instead of relying completely on motivation. This is also true when it comes to my art.   I’ve learned that I can’t sit in my studio for hours on end, the most productive and best work is done in the first and second hour. Anything more and I start to get too into my head. I also need to have somewhat of a plan before I even walk down the stairs. Otherwise I get overwhelmed just looking at all that I could do, or I start random proje...
Read more

Almost There

Nowadays it is the norm to go to collage or university even when you don’t know what you want to do. It’s preached go to school and figure it out while you’re there. It’s taught that your job is your life and it is all you really ought to try to achieve. Even as young as 14 this didn't sit right with me, I always dodged the questions. What do you want to be, what school do you want to go to, what would you like to do with your life. Because I learned from a young age that artist wasn’t the answer that they were looking for.   I learned to fly under the radar because I knew my dream would be easily crushed, but I am stubborn. So I did my best in school and then I made my great escape. Now almost five years later I am about 3 steps away from achieving what I set out to do.  I have about three things felt to do and then I will not just be an artist who makes things frequently, I will be one who sells these things too. I have an 8 painting series ready to be sold, and that is...
Read more