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Tuesday 10 April 2018

When the Story is Done...

Last week I mentioned it was time to tackle the final draft of the YA horror novel I planned to finish last month.

Well, yesterday I finally finished. Yay.

The final word count is 78,716.

This story has taken quite a while to complete, but every bit of work was worth it. I'm SO happy with how it's turned out. There was a time when I thought this day would never come because my vision of this book and what was on the page seemed so far away from each other. 

The road to Haunted was a longish one. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2016. Back when I planned to tell a creepy story about four friends who lived in a peculiar small town with some pretty horrific secrets.

And I did. Kind of.

I wrote a fast draft I was happy with, but put it aside for most of last year. Not just because I like to get a bit of distance from my first drafts, but also because 2017 was all about reconnecting with my love of writing. And that meant (mainly) concentrating on first drafts.

After Samhain Publishing closed and all of my books disappeared, as if they'd never been published, I was a little lost. I took some time off to write short stories, and then lost myself in new novel ideas. I ended up writing 3 novels and even squeezed in the second draft of Haunted.

But after finishing that draft I decided to change several things, including the location. So I needed extra time to take notes, research and brainstorm. By that time the new year ticked over, but I was determined to get it done during the first half of 2018.

Only problem was that after the third draft, the read-thru ended up being just another detailed draft because I did some pretty intense rewriting. And SO MUCH cutting! 

When it was finally time to sit down and read the story ONE last time on my Paperwhite... that's exactly what I did.

This time I read the novel from start to finish and only found minor typos, and other nitty-gritty stuff I changed along the way. I actually reached the end on Friday, but during the weekend started a 2-page list of things to take care of before really calling it done.

And that's what I did yesterday. I finally reached The End. Awesome!!

The story is now finished, and I'm so happy with how it turned out. And after I write the synopsis, I'll be free to move on to some of the other stories hounding my brain.

I can't wait.

But this week I'm going to celebrate THIS by taking a mental break! 😃

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