So. My Novel Is Written. NOW What Do I Do?

Rest, ruminate; lament. Tell myself to pull my socks up: if it really is that bad, I can fix it when I return in three months for the Big Edit (which is kind of like a deep clean...)

Read a bit. Craft a bit. Buy a lot – and cringe when the credit card bill comes in. Remind myself that these purchases were essential: rewards for writing a whole novel, and things-that-have-been-on-the-wish-list-so-long-they-have-to-have-a-new-home...

Fuss the cat loads, now that she has started sitting on my lap. Realise that this is not just because she was an un-socialised kitten who has made huge leaps forward in trusting humans, but because there is actually room for her now that I’m not using the laptop every night. Oh.

Craft a bit more now that I have new stash.

Sort through things everywhere (writing room, bedroom, lounge, kitchen), chucking out what I haven’t used in a year. Or two.

Begin relevant research, now that I know what is actually relevant... Get lost in fabulous but irrelevant detail once again, and remind myself that I just chucked loads of that out. Decide not to repeat.

Start to give the Pen Pot a spring clean with a fresh look, then get irritated with technology and give up. Resolve to put ‘patience’ on my Christmas List.

Bake some. Eat much more.

Consult the calendar, certain my self-imposed three months must soon be up.

Scream when I see that only two weeks have passed. Two weeks.

Console myself with a bar of chocolate. And another one. Stop short of being sick. Here, try one of your cupcakes, you say? Oh, go on, then, it would be rude not to...

~ ttfn ~ 

Those Two Little Words...

I'm a little late posting this month, and I apologise. You can blame the need to write those two little words...

'The End.'

Yep, in the last hour, I have completed the last page of the final chapter of Novel Number Two.

Whoop whoop!

And here she is: 

Admittedly, this is only the 1st Whole Draft (I call it this because each chapter has already been edited at least once...or four times!) - and so there is cutting and redrafting and polishing ahead of me... But, for this stage, I. Have. Achieved.

And by my deadline, which I set as part of my New Year-ness. Double whoop whoop!

I will come back and blog again, but I'm understandably rather knackered right now... 

I will be leaving my manuscript (and I feel I can really call it that, now that it's finished! Triple whoop whoop!) alone for 3 months, so that I have 'fresh eyes' as we writers call it, don'cha know, for that big rewrite.

But for now, I do believe I deserve a celebratory Mini Egg or two (bags, of course - how could anyone limit themselves to one measly little egg?!)...

~ ttfn ~