Birth of a Book

After nine months of tapping away on my laptop, I’ve done it! I’ve finally typed ‘the end’ and completed a first draft of my novel.  Woo hoo!

It’s a girl! I’ve not finalised the name yet but I’m delighted to announce that I’ve given birth to a book. She weighed in at a healthy 87k words, 310 pages long and I’m pleased to report that mother and baby are doing well.

But a first (VERY rough) draft is only the beginning, not ‘the end’ of the journey so I’m trying not to get too hyper (although it was still a good excuse to pop a cork). I know now from experience that there’s still a LOT of work to be done. It’s still a ‘work in progress’ and will be for quite some time…

This is the third time that I’ve written a novel but it’s the first time I’ve used the ‘freefall’ technique. My verdict? It’s definitely the best method I’ve ever tried so far. The idea is that instead of beating myself up about getting every word right and every sentence perfectly constructed, I gave myself permission to let the story flow out, without fear, without checking for typos, without any inhibitions. This meant that I didn’t get bogged down in one particular section and was able to keep the momentum going.

The freefall method is all about being creative but now it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of the text and start the editing process. This is the point where I have to be ruthless with my red pen.

I know before I start to reread the draft that there will be chunks of text where I’ll cringe at the first draft howlers where I’ve made mistakes and simply written a load of guff. But hopefully there will be enough raw material to polish into something shiny and worth showing…

How did you feel when you finished your first draft? What’re your best editing tips?