It Is DONE!!!!

Hip Hip Hooray and a loud Huzzah for the SFD (or Shitty First Draft as Jessica Hart calls it) is finished!

I finished it this morning and it's currently sitting at 53, 236 words which I am quite please with.  I have enough surplus to form a nice buffer zone for editing purposes - enough to trim and then add more where it is needed.

I see a lot of that in my not too distant future - trimming and adding.

And while I have had a bit of time and distance from the beginning of the book that I could probably go back and start editing now, I am going to reward myself by doing a little more work on my Jane Austen single title.

Of course I let Sandy know I'd finished.  This is what she thought of my effort:

 Well, maybe not that great - but I appreciate the sentiment :)

When Your Writing Makes You Cry

I suppose there are two interpretations of that title - and I've been through both.

I've sat in front of my computer and wished that it were possible to tear computer screens into pieces because what I wrote was just that bad.  At those moments, I doubt my abilities the most.

I distinctly recall the look on one Aunt's face when I told her that I was going to be a writer.  She recoiled and I instantly wondered if I'd had one of those moments where you think "wouldn't it be funny to say: 'I'm going to be a hooker'" and instead of just thinking about it, you accidently say it.  Well I hadn't.  Not on that occasion anyway!  No she was just appalled that I wasn't intending on pursuing a 'real' job.  When I have bad writing blues, and think every word I have ever written is a smear on the literary world, I remember the look on her face and sometimes I think: "she was right".

Then I smack myself (sometimes it stings too) and play an inspiring song.  Beyonce's I Was Here does it for me every time.

But actually what I meant by the title of this post was that I have reached the end of my MS and the Hero is telling the Heroine about his childhood and why he is the way he is.  Now, I knew all this from the beginning when I worked out why he reacted to her and approached life the way he did.  But then I really got lost in what he was telling her and I was imagining this little boy and whammo! the tears started.

To be honest I felt a little silly.  It's like a singer buying their own CD and saying "Man this is the BEST song evah!" or an actor going to see their own movie and saying "I rock!"

Isn't it?

Perhaps now would be a good time to tell you that I also laugh at my own jokes.  One word: hopeless.