A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO STAPLES

Well as you may have guessed by the photo above, I am done. Yes. I am done. Three very simple words that sum up an awful lot of work.

I finished the first draft of the book at around 12:30 in the morning Sunday night, backed up three copies of it, and then spent the next hour and a half trying to calm down enough to go to sleep. I have been very quiet about the book’s plot, but I think, for those that know me, it’s a safe bet to assume that the story is a big adventure story, because it is. Now in order to write anything that is remotely interesting, I had to believe I was there, and the closer I got to the end of the book, the more intense it became to write. So, for me, it was the most intense writing experience I have ever had. It was visceral, fun, but very tiring. In fact I have been pretty consistent at writing about 10 pages a day for three or four days a week, since August. The most I had written in one day was 15 pages. On Sunday I wrote 30 pages. I don’t know what came over me, or how I was able to do it, but that’s how my Sunday went.

When I finished the book, it came in at a whopping 482 pages and 183 202 words. I didn’t realize that it would take that much to say what I had to say. I had an even bigger surprise on Monday morning when I headed off to Staples to print the thing off. They didn’t have the font I used, so the 12 point font it was printed on was apparently significantly larger than the 12 point font I wrote it in. So it printed out 576 pages!!!! There’s a lesson for all of us! Not all fonts are the same, even if you use the same points in the font!

I obviously now have no idea how many pages my book is. I will have to do more research and find a standard print font that even Staples has, and reformat it all. But that is what the second draft is for.

I think the problem I am going to have is that most people are going to take a look a 500+ page book and assume that the story meanders, and that I couldn’t be more efficient with the writing. That isn’t the case. The story is quite action packed. I have no patience with self-indulgence, so I don’t waste time with my plot.

So now the plan is to get plenty of rest, and then wait a month or two before re-writing the book. I plan to take the next year to sculpt the book into something that I feel comfortable sending out to publishers and agents. At least now I have something. I can actually say I wrote a book, though it will mean more if I get published.