The first draft

It didn't take me long after writing "book 1" or part 1 of the book to finish the first draft. It was definitely nights and weekends for about 4 months. It's amazing how different the draft was from the way I had initially sketched out the chapters. Because I was open to it, I found that some characters I thought would be prominent ended up less so while others (like Grace or Elijah) ended up having a more central role.

So a few years ago I saw this 20/20 thing where there was a symphony-writing prodigy who thought that the music he wrote the first time was perfect and didn't need to be altered (even though the greatest composers ever constantly altered their works). I thought the kid has a lot to learn. Fast forward to my rough draft - I thought it was brilliant and wouldn't need much editing.

Hahaha.

I have edited this novel dozens of times. Basically, I stopped editing about a week ago. So that means that I basically edited it for 2.5 years. Of course, the thing I learned that worked best was when I would step away from it (sometimes more than a month at a time) and then return and look at it with fresh eyes.

So, there you have it. I wrote the first draft then edited for years while I tried to find an agent.

Oh, boy. Let's get into that next. :)