I am marking this day in my calendar. Today is the day that I officially declare the first draft of Fixit to be done.
My first (completed) novel. I think I’m in shock. I know I’m crying, and they’re tears of joy. What a relief! Proof positive at long last that I can embark on this career of writing – I finally have content. I may not win any awards for making deadlines, but I finished the damned book.
75,000 words…and there are plenty of places in the draft where I left [fill in details here] spots. And, to be honest, the ending just kind of fizzles out and there are serious continuity errors on top of the holes. But, you know what? I’ve been slugging away at this thing for more than three years. I say it’s bloody well done and those other things are what second drafts are for.
I think I’m going to make a game of how many drafts this thing sees before it is available to sell. For some reason, the number eight is stuck in my head. Can I get it where I want it in less drafts? Oooh. Vegas odds, anyone?
If I haven’t been absolutely clear before, this book (I can call it a book now! I don’t have to keep coming up with euphemisms or just calling it a story) is what I like to write: horror and tragedy. It’s dense and heavy and some people I’ve shared it with just bog down in the middle from the weight of the thing. Future drafts are going to have to pull a Shakespeare and insert some comedy in there to lighten things up and change things up a bit so that it isn’t so dense.
Incidentally, if you haven’t seen The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s production of The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare – Abridged!, you really ought to. I’m going to steal a line from them in reference to inserting comedy into tragedy: “We’re going to take a break from the comedies and return to the tragedies…because they’re funnier than the comedies.”
So raise a glass with me, if you will. This is time for celebration. The first real day of my next career.
The Painted Corner 