It’s been a good long while since I posted a blog about my novel work-in-progress project that’s been bubbling away quietly in the background. The great/excellent/amazing news is that just over three weeks ago, I typed “THE END”. At the end. Having written all the bits between the beginning and the end at least once. (Only once).
So, I have a completed sh*tty first draft of my whole book, that I started writing in July-ish 2020, and it only took about 2 years, including several months of just, like, not writing, hoping it would somehow finish itself. [There was that whole global pandemic on-going situation, and I was quite low for a few months, and I did other projects and I read a lot and wrote very little in that patch, kay?]1
I got to the end by taking on a challenge to touch the manuscript every day in January (13 417 words), which was so successful for me that I decided to do it again in March (8045 words) – so two months of writing at least some words (sometimes literally 5 words2, sometimes over 1500 words) got me to the very end.
Final draft 1 word count: 78 823
Completion date: 1 May 2022
I’m going to stick it in a digital drawer and leave it there for a while so I can come back to it with fresh eyes in a few months, then strip it down to its bare bones and build it again, fixing all the things I already know are wrong with it. But until then, I’m just going to be a bit smug, coz I wrote a whole book.
1Yes, I am aware I don’t need to be defensive about not thriving in the pandemic. Gosh.
2The “word history” on scrivener also has that one day I wrote -300ish words, when I wrote a bit somewhere to replace a longer section, and lost net words that day. How it goes.
Everyday Adventures 
Writing “The End” at the end of a novel is something most humans never get round to doing. What a feeling! Well done friend.
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