I spent the 4th of July in Pennsylvania with my girlfriend.  She’s been a faithful alpha reader from the beginning of the project.  Without her input and enthusiasm, my journey through the process would have been difficult, if not close to impossible.  Thank you, my lovely alpha reader.

So, after spending a little over five months on this project(piecing together the story, researching, writing, etc), I’m happy to write that I finished the first draft this evening!

I’m looking forward to digging back into the novel and seeing what worked and what fell flat, or was just plain awful.  I suspect there may be some sections that worked really well, and those will be a pleasant surprise.

I had originally planned on this book being 200k words, but based on current trends I decided to cut it down to about 115k words.  I know I’ll be able to cut quite a bit in the revision, but I may need to add as well.  I bet I’ll end up with around 110k, but we’ll see.

I don’t want to start the second book in the series until I’ve had time to do a macro edit on the first one.  So, with that in mind:  I belong to a writing group called:  book-in-a-week, it takes place once a month(usually the first Monday of each month) and lasts for, you guessed it:  one week.  The goal of the group isn’t for critique, nothing that is written gets turned in, it’s simply a way to get motivated and just type away.  You post your daily totals and also get to see how many pages other writers are cranking out each day.  It’s a great group.

Anyway, since I don’t feel comfortable starting the second book in the series, I intend on using the upcoming week to write a science fiction short story that I intend to enter into the Writers of the Future Contest.  So, between now and Monday morning when book-in-a-week starts, I’ll be piecing together my ideas for the scifi short story.

Tomorrow night my girlfriend and I will be celebrating the completion of my first draft with a bottle of champagne!  I can’t wait!  This draft is significant since I haven’t finished a novel since about the 8th grade back in 1984, so it’s a big deal!

Anyway, happy writing and happy living!

Alistair

Last week began with the shocking news that I’d have to vacate the place I am renting.  A day or two of being down was followed by a busy weekend of looking for a new place to hang my hat until I move from the DC for much greener pastures. 

I found a nice place, close to where I live now, but overall I believe this is a nicer neighborhood. 

Despite the problems of last week I still managed to get some quality writing done on the book.  I finished a pivotal chapter that fought me every step of the way.  That chapter needed to be written and forced me to do some difficult things to my characters. 

That brings us to this week.

Monday night:  I’m happily BIC HOK TAM (butt-in-chair hands-on-keyboard typing-away-madly) for those not in the know, when at 11pm, I hear voices that sound as if they are right outside my townhouse.  Some neighbors that are close by have been known to throw some parties while hanging out in their driveway, but on Monday night, the racket was coming from a different place.

I decided to go to bed around 12am, but I hardly ever get to bed before then and I usually read before I go to sleep.  The noise level from these buffoons made it impossible for me to concentrate on the book I was reading.  I looked outside, and it definitely was not coming from my neighborhood; the apocolypse was coming from a different neighborhood!

Around 12:30am the police must have shown up, because it got very quiet all of the sudden, and I thought I’d have a respite.  Wrong.  About ten minutes later it started up again, and it sounded as if I was in the middle of some ritualistic sacrifice to Kong, punctuated by a scream—then a few seconds later, there was more yelling and hollering. 

I turned on the air conditioning and the TV for some homegrown noise (its funny isn’t it that if I’m responsible for the noise I can sleep through it), and I think I finally fell asleep around 3:30 am.  The alarm went off immediately, or so it seemed, and I was up at 5:55am.  I’m shocked I was able to make it through the whole day at work and then got some writing done once I got home! 

Tuesday:  I settle in for a night of writing and what do you know, right at 11pm the party starts up again.  This time I figure out where the noise is coming from.  Through the woods in the adjoining neighborhood, I see a bunch of people out on a deck yelling and screaming.  This wasn’t next door, the other neighborhood is separated by a lot of trees, and this house was probably about an 1/8 of a mile away from my townhouse.

I hop in my car and drive to the road this house sits on so I can get the address.  As I’m driving by, I can hear the savages (my windows were up).   I call the police and explain to the dispatcher the situation and how this is night #2 and they are just getting started and will probably go until 2am.  They send an officer, and at about midnight I see a light go out and the noise ceased.   Ahhhh.  It was still not a great night of sleep, but better than the previous night.

Wednesday night:  I go to bed early since I’m so exhausted from the other nights, and there was no party!  It felt so good to fall asleep, but when I woke up my neck would not bend to the right.  It hurts so bad right now.  I wish I knew why and how I could sleep in such a way that causes so much pain during my waking hours.  Damn!

Luckily, my day job didn’t have too many stressful or taxing moments this past week.  I will be getting out a little early today and do not have to go to work tomorrow!  I am planning on getting a nice jog in after work and then I’m going to settle in and write, write, write! 

Tomorrow I’ll be heading up to Pennsylvania to spend the 4th of July weekend with my girlfriend, so the writing time will be limited until Sunday evening.  It’ll be great to chill out and be with her though.  She’s been reading the chapters as I’ve been writing them providing me with advice, insight and all sorts of helpful suggestions. 

So….Thank goodness it’s thursday!

Alistair