Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Novel

After nearly two years of work, I have finally completed the first draft of a book. I had been going at a pretty good pace until this pesky job started to take off, now I have to work during my week days. But I've plugged along, and as of Monday I finished it. Though I don't know what the correct spacing and margins should be, right now the finished product is 701 pages.

As far as the contents, you've got a basic assortment of vampires, zombies, and other badassedry. As to the quality, I can't speak to that. It's not Shakespeare, it's not Hemingway, it's not Tolkien. But I like it. Then again, I liked The Chronicles of Riddick.

Now for the editing process. I don't really know what I'm going to do with it, ultimately. But I know it's only the first of a six book series. Maybe I'll try to get published. Maybe I'll just keep it for myself.

But what's important is that I've come this far, and I can finally put that bit from Family Guy out of my mind, the one where Stewie teases Brian about his alleged novel in an increasingly high-pitched voice, just to mock him:

Stewie: How you uh, how you comin' on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yea, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? (voice returns to normal) No, no, you deserve some time off."

1 comment:

RPM said...

That's amazing. I was expecting a screenplay a few years down the line, not an epic novel this soon. Remember, among your friends, you have lots of literary/editor types that can lend their sets of eyes to it if you want. Well done!