IT IS DONE (HAS BEEN FOR A WHILE NOW. SORRY ABOUT THAT.)

           Yes, I am pleased to announce that I have finished writing my novel. On October 13th, so I'm a bit behind. And yes, I previously announced it on Twitter, so if you thought you saw an announcement about this before, no, you probably aren't having deja vu; you probably just saw the tweet. 

          When I first started this blog, I had the idea that I'd post about my writing pretty frequently, to at least keep whatever audience I have relatively up-to-date on whatever projects I'm currently attempting. And I really thought I'd do better about posts on the novel as I wrote it, but honestly, between writing the thing, on-the-fly plot rearrangements, typing it all up, and planning what projects I'd jump into when I finished (a timeline I'd all but completely rearranged barely two weeks free of the novel), I just didn't have time. But I'm here now, for all it's worth. 

          This wasn't the first novel I'd planned, looked forward to, or seriously attempted to write over the past couple of years, or even the past year. Even as I was gathering all the info I thought I'd need (which, of course, it wasn't; I lost count of all the mid-writing research breaks I had to take to look up things as varied as shoulder-mounted missile launchers used by the U.S. army, methods of African poachers, and Italian pastries), writing out my scribble sheets and chapter-by-chapter plot outline, I was excited but leery, because while it was definitely something I was enthused enough to make my way fully through, I knew that feeling. It's come before almost every project I've ever undertaken, some of which I completed, some of which I, to put it mildly, did not. 

          But I got my shit together, compiled an inspiration playlist (which I'll post at some point), picked out a notebook, and picked up my pencil. I began this novel, a military sci-fi horror show, on July 6th, 2018, just after finishing a short story that was recently rejected by Corpus Press, and I finished it on October 13th, 2018, at my local library. For all the gods in Asgard, I cannot tell you just how many times I have heard "Run Through the Jungle" in the writing of this thing; I think maybe it's a level no mortal was ever supposed to reach.

          But I did. I reached it, and I broke through, and I am still here to tell the tale. 

          How did I do it, you may ask? Why was this novel so special that I finished it when other stories, just as special to me and not much longer, languish unfinished in the huge Hot Topic bags where I store most of my notebooks? Well, Curious George, you're not gonna like my answer.   

          I have no fucking clue.

          Of course, technically speaking, I finished writing the story because I physically reached the last scene I envisioned for it, had all the preceding words written out, and filled up the last page of my notebook that I had to. But as to why I was able to cling on and, really, speed through this book like I did? Nope, I don't know.  

          One of the things I think might've helped, though, was that for the first time that I can remember I set a daily word goal for myself (pretty late to the party on that one, I know): this time around, 500 words a day at least. I had no idea if I'd be able to make it; in the past, writing goals have always been vaguer, more along the lines of "I want to finish this chapter by the end of the week" or "I should get up to X scene break today, if I push myself." Which, to a degree, had been working. But this time I made a calculated effort and figured out that if I hit at least 500 words a day, I should reach the "at least 40,000 words" minimum that the publisher I'm eyeing for this thing, once it's polished up, requires for this type of manuscript, in about two and a half months, so even if the story itself ran longer, which I was pretty sure it would, I'd still be looking good.  

          So I set the daily word count, started keeping track, and, oddly enough, I met it. And met it. And met it. And kept meeting it, and many times, to my surprise, exceeding it, sometimes to the point of doubling it, and usually in the same amount of daily writing time I usually found for myself in the course of a day. It was a shock, but a good one, at least. And I think one of the things that must've helped me push through was seeing how much I could actually do in a day, getting that rush, and then realizing I could do keep doing it, and the novel rolled along from there.  

          Of course, when I say I finished the novel, that's a pretty way of saying I finished the first draft and now have to go back through it page by page, line by line, word by word and wonder why the fuck I wrote this scene like that, or how I could have forgotten what I wanted to have that guy say here, and relive the grisly deaths of characters that gutted me the first time around and, hopefully, will someday scar readers just as deeply as they did me (I think if you manage to emotionally fuck up your audience as badly as you were fucked up while you wrote something, you've done your job as a writer.). So I'm sure at some point I'll manage another post screaming about the editing process...or at least I plan to manage one...and we all know how my plans usually turn out. But if by some miracle the book gets a decent final form and gets published, I'll definitely tell you guys about that. Promise.