A Novel Roller Coaster

Hello readers! I have exciting news. Okay it is exciting to me. I have finished revisions and editing of draft number 2 of my book!!! YAY!!! I am so excited to reach this point. I may not be at my word goal yet, but that is only 10,860 words away. I am sure those will show up with further edits and revisions. I know more detail may need to be added to the book.

I was so excited to start writing a novel. I had been waiting years to finish school so I could attempt to write 50,000 words in one month during NaNoWriMo. Leading up to the month I spent my time planning out my novel and doing some world building. The month started and I started out strong…well that did not last. For some reason a good portion of that month I would end up with headaches and exhaustion after returning from home. This was not conducive to writing 50,000 words quickly. The month ended and I had not finished my book.

This did not make me feel disheartened about finishing a novel. I continued to write at home and met up with friends at write-ins to continue my novel with support of other writers. For all of 2015 I kept writing and working on my novel while also giving myself time to try other areas of writing. I wrote a short-story to go with my main novel. I planned my project for the upcoming NaNoWriMo, a history of my world to help continue my world-building. I started to create a polytheistic religion on my way to North Carolina for a wedding.

November 2015 hit and I was able to finish draft one of my book!! YAY! I was relieved. I started my world-building novel, but was not motivated to continue writing it. I was not passionate about it. So I printed out 80+ pages of my novel to hand edit my first draft with the ever dreaded during high school red pen. I spent my NaNo editing the novel until the end of December before starting edits and revisions round two.

I found I hated the ending I had planned for my novel…just hated it, but could not think of how to end it. For the last few weeks I have been fighting an internal war against myself on the ending to my book. Suddenly I figured out an ending I wanted, including an epilogue leading into my next book in the series.

As I write this book I feel relieved that I found an ending I am more proud of and cannot wait to see how this book expands and grows to what I dreamed as well as the series and world it is a part of.

Thank you to Jessica for the post idea and title for this post.

Readers, tell me about your roller coaster moments of writing. The lows, the highs, the times you felt like giving up.