Saturday, February 28, 2009

First Draft Sprint - Across The Finish Line!


Whoo hoo! I made it! Yesterday afternoon I finished the first draft I started on Feb 2. Page count: 313. Word Count: 64,123.

Which means that it's at least 6,000 words too short, but that's fine. I knew it'd be short.

The first draft, for me, is like a sketch of the finished mural. There are broad strokes and perhaps some color. The foreground (the main romance) is fairly clear but needs a lot of detail and shading; the background (secondary characters and subplots) need a lot more work.

As my reward, I'm taking today off and going to see Stone of Destiny. (And with regards to the Weight Loss Challenge, I am first going to go on a long walk - at least two hours - and there will be no treats at the show.)

Next comes printing up the manuscript and reading to see what I've got, no doubt making copious notes and changes as I go. I cannot NOT do that when I read a manuscript, which is why I need a hard copy.

So now I know it's possible for me to write a first draft in four weeks. However, the amount of revising and rewriting I have to do is going to determine if the First Draft Sprint method really works for me, or not.

2 comments:

Kaye Manro said...

Good luck with the revisions, Margaret. And thanks again for explaining your Sprit method!

Anonymous said...

WOW! Congrats on the marathon sprint! I'm not sure if I could write a whole book in 26 days! I'm lucky if I churn out 2 a year! Regards Caroline