The Novel Of Doom: VANQUISHED.

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 15.678% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

The Novel of Doom: Vanquished.
The heap you see here is the last pages of the fifth and final edit of my Novel of Doom. It is now complete and ready for me to start shopping it.
If you were kind enough to come with me on last Summer’s Clarion Write-A-Thon, where I live-wrote the first draft, you may note that this is now the fifth draft.  About a third of the scenes have been rewritten, with completely new ones put in.  Characterization has been improved.  More description to make it more visual has been stuffed in.  A few additional subplots have been added. If you read the first draft, I think you’ll find it quite edifying to see the difference between first and final.
And in the past three weeks, I’ve gone through and yanked 15% of the words out, bringing it down to a lean, mean 89.5k.
(I’ve suffered from the Death Flu, but by happy coincidence I did most of the heavy lifting scribbling on pages, noting what emotional notes to add to what scenes, overviews of new dialog, and so forth.  So when I’ve been stuck in my house muzzy and stupid, I simply followed the directions I’d given myself one page at a time, flinging it to the other side of the couch when done, and then 10% Solutioned it a chapter at a time.)
So, barring some last-minute proofreadings provided by my helpful assistant jenphalian, this is the finalized novel.  I have to take a break, now, and then start reading up on query letters and Synopses That Sell! and all the other crap that comes with finding an agent.  Which is going to be a scary process, made a little scarier by some other factors I can’t get into now but will probably end up helping.
But right now?  That’s a full novel.  Sixteen months of effort.  And it is done.

3 Comments

  1. Sage
    Feb 17, 2012

    At the very least… congratulations on the finish!

  2. jenphalian
    Feb 17, 2012

    Holy shit, I just realized you properly didn’t capitalize jenphalian! *gives you a cookie*

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