book notes #8

After writing, on and off, for about four years, I have finally finished the first draft of my book.  And when I say on and off, I mean I wrote for about two weeks, then took four months off, wrote for about 5 weeks, then took two months off, etc.   So it's not like I labored tirelessly for four long years straight through.

But I have written more in the past several months than I have in the past several years and it feels good to finally be finished.  Of course, I'm not completely finished but I've written the work and the real magic (or madness) begins with editing.

Speaking of, the book ended up being 589 pages!  That's way too long.  And you all thought I was long-winded with my entries.  Imagine them all crammed together and bound into a book.  Although, to be fair, it does cover an entire school year.  A lot of stuff happened.  But I'm going to have to make some difficult cuts to trim the size a bit.

The bad part is I already left some things out that I didn't think were important and I even rushed the last section because I thought the book was running too long.  But hopefully I can even it all out after a few edits.  Once I cut out enough stuff, I'll feel more comfortable going back to the last several chapters and fleshing them out a bit more.

After I finished, I went to print out the book so I could really go in and start marking it all up with my red pen.  But after about twenty pages, my printer ran out of ink.  The next day, I picked up some more ink and went home and changed the cartridge and after about 200 pages, I ran out of ink again.  Maybe I'm not an ink expert but does ink really run out that fast?  Trying to print this thing out is already becoming annoying and costly.

I hope the editing won't take more than two months and then I'll send it to a few people for more editing/content and just to get a different perspective.

It's going to be weird when I really am finished.  Like I said, I've had this project close to me for four years now, even if it has been on and off.  But when I put it out there and no longer sit down and revisit those memories and events, it's going to be strange.  Might even be like a part of my day is missing. 

That's not to say there will be an empty space.  I already have plans for a follow-up book and then I want to participate in National Novel Writing month coming up in November and I have the book I wrote two years ago for National Novel Writing month that I would like to mold into something nice.  So other books are in the works and I should keep busy. 

But for now, this one means the most to me.