As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been busy working on the manuscript for my first full length novel, Too Much Information, and I’m happy to report today that the first draft is finished. 
At the risk of writing too much about writing (something other bloggers have warned me against), I thought I’d talk just a little about the process of writing thus far and where I’m planning to take it from here.
As far as getting it done, it was extremely helpful for me to set goals such as an overall word count (80k, though it’s now a bit longer than that), along with a goal of getting 1000 words or more written every day, which I was able to stick to pretty consistently from start to finish. Most days I wrote quite a lot more than 1000, actually, but in any case I made sure to at least hit that goal every day whenever I was able to do so (there were a few days though…just blocked or something). One memorable Sunday, I actually wrote out the entire ending sequence which ended up running around 5k words in one marathon session, but I wouldn’t recommend that. I sort of stressed myself out going that far, and the next day was one of those few where I really couldn’t do any meaningful writing at all.
Now that the first draft is done, I’m personally swimming in uncharted waters as far as how to fix it up, what revisions I should attempt, and what steps to take in order to put out the best work I’m capable of putting out. I’m not sure how long this should take or whether I should (or even can!) set some other sorts of goals to keep me on track. I feel a bit stuck, really, as I’m reluctant to delve into this next phase too deeply without some sort of plan of action. I’ve been spending the last few days just adjusting the timeline a bit, moving a few scenes around so it flows a little better. But I will hopefully be able to find some sort of groove similar to the one I was in while writing up the draft, and I’ll write about that here on the blog if it seems interesting enough to share with my readers. I don’t want to bore everyone too much with the technical stuff lol, although hopefully any writers out there who happen upon my blog might get something out of it.
This was a huge project and at times I wondered if I’d ever have the perseverance necessary to finish it. I am definitely feeling some sense of accomplishment, although it’s far from really being done so I can’t get all that hyped over it just yet. I am, however, rather enjoying the process of looking into book cover art, learning about editing and how to format for e-publishing, and all that good sort of stuff that the internet is so great at providing. I’m sure I’ll be needing all the help I can get, both now in the editing stages of the game, and in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future when I’m ready to send it out for public consumption. For now, though, I’m just really psyched that I managed to push through and get that first draft done. 
Thanks for reading!
