I Finished the 1st Draft of My First Novel – Now What?

[Stream of Consciousness – Edited for Grammar]

I finished my first draft of the first novel I’ve ever written. I am underwhelmed. I expected fireworks and general pride like I conquered something or returned home at the end of an epic quest.

I am pleased, to be sure. But it’s a quiet feeling. (I struggle with finishing what I start so finishing this should be a big deal.)

In general, my attitude is “what’s next?”

To my thinking, there are 3 things you can do with a novel once you write the first draft.

1. Edit it for proper publishing
2. Put it on the internet for feedback
3. Stuff it in a drawer (or turn it into a scarf)

So this being my first completed rough draft (I got 30k words into a romance novel for a Camp NaNoWriMo earlier this year) what do I want to do with it?

The goal has always been to self-publish. (I’ve always been a stick it to the man in every way possible sort of gal.) But I’m hesitating. Do I need a rest? Should I hold off for the rest of December and start editing when I get back from vacation in the new year?

How long is it going to take to edit it? Will it ever be “good enough”? I guess I will find out.

I’m inclined to break for the rest of the week and then decide what to do after finishing my regular work (you know, the stuff you get paid for.)

But there is momentum there. And a quiet excitement. I want to write more. Part of me is disappointed that I finished Subversion. I guess I can always work on something else in the idea backlog, but I’ve gotten extremely attached to Lari and Venn. They’ve become like friends that you can never see too often.

I suppose if I were to organize the next steps, it would be edit. (There is conflicting advice on the internets about whether to do grammar first or last. My book from college (that I don’t remember ever opening or even what class it was for) just told me yesterday that your first edit should be grammar. That way it won’t distract you when you are working on the more important stuff.

But then Joanna Penn said edit for grammar last because it’s the least important.

I think I’ll try the grammar first camp and see how that works out. Otherwise, I suspect it will distract me and make the process take forever.

In the meantime, I am now free to start figuring out the plot of Dearest Melissa which I am planning on being my first foray into Wattpad.

Here’s the thing about Wattpad. It was exactly like Kiwibox when I was a kid. All my school friends were writers (I enviously listened to their awesomeness and tried to help with edits once) and put their stuff on Kiwibox. I just played the games. So I’ve been looking for a modern version of it and heard about this new-Kiwibox app.

I started exploring what it could do, and some of the stories have beautiful ideas. Not the best execution, this isn’t a thing were professional authors publish for free. It’s amateurs, like myself. But pushing through the issues the ideas are fabulous.

Anyway, I think I’ve clarified all this in my head now. Thanks for being such an excellent listener! Many hugs.

Steps will be:

• Break for rest of week
• Start grammatical edits next week
• When feeling the need to write, work on new story
• Fix gaping plot holes and unnecessary characters when finished with grammar.
• Find other readers for feedback (wattpad again?)
• Cover art
• Write copy
• Publish to Amazon

Thanks again and I hope you have a beautiful holiday season!

(Remember to be kind to retail employees. Whatever you’re frustrated about is probably not their fault, and they’re working insane shifts to take advantage of the holiday madness.)