It's done!!!

My book that is!!!!!!!!

For nearly two years I have been attempting to write a novel in my spare time. Ha! What spare time you ask? Not much. That's why it's taken two years to finish it! But the first draft is now complete!

It started out as a project to keep my mind off from TTC (trying to conceive). I was having a very difficult time conceiving, and I was on fertility drugs at the time. I needed to find an outlet to NOT obsess about TTC, to keep my mind off from it for a while, even if it was just a few hours in the evening. Back in high school I had started a novel based off a fantasy I had about a certain celebrity. I had only gotten to chapter 3, then lost interest (Mainly because I had a boyfriend at that time).

A while back I was going through old papers and found those chapters. I was a little nostalgic since I still have a crush (infatuation....maybe even close to stalker-like) on this celebrity. I started up another fantasy in my mind about what it would have been like ten years later. And wha-la! My book was born.
I spent quite a bit of time just working on the story and plot. Without a decent plot line you have very little to go on....even if you have appealing and interesting characters. So I basically took the chapters from high school, used the same characters but aged them ten years....so it's the story of what happened ten years after, of course, assuming I would actually write the FIRST book. hahha. Eventually I do plan on making a trilogy....the before, ten years later, and even later. LOL

I made notecards and broke scenes up into who is in what scene, what the action is, any specifics like smells and looks. I spent quite a bit of time developing the characters. These characters actually have pages upon pages of data....including physical description, personality features, family structure, former relationships, life history, how they relate to other characters in the book and why, even what makes them tick. My best friend (Julie) helped me on those since I'm more of a plot person than a character person.

After all that prep work, I finally got down to the nitty gritty of writing. Two hours here, two hours there. I would mainly write after Ryan went to bed at 7:30, then stay up until about 10pm. Would I actually stay up all night to write? Heck no. I'm not that dedicated to lose my sleep....at least not yet. LOL This is something I enjoy and want to continue to enjoy! Instead of writing by chapters, which is confusing IMO, I wrote by scenes. And I started with my favorite scenes first. I read a book once that stated if you start writing a novel by writing in chapter sequence, you'd never get past chapter 3. (gee, sounds faguely familiar). So I wrote my favorite scenes first. It really got me motivated to continue to write, since I wanted to form what happened before and after that scene.

Of course, it took so long because I did end up getting pregnant and having a baby (my wonderful baby Kyle!). I discontinued writing during my third trimester since I was getting too tired and couldn't fit the laptop on my lap anymore. I was more excited about the pending birth than the book at the time. And of course, I didn't write for the first six months after his birth due to sleep deprivation, adjusting to two children, and PPD. But a few months ago I started writing again...about once or twice a week. It met my need of some "me" time along with my creativity craving. Plus, I was so close I really wanted to finish it!

So this week I finally wrote the last word on the last scene! And I'm happy with it!

Now I need to edit, proofread, rewrite, and make it all one happy, cute little manuscript. That should take only about, oh, another two years. LOL

Happy Editing!