the end of yellowtree's beginning.

So, I finished the rough draft of my novel today (click here to read the first chapter), two National Novel Writing Months and an endless amount of late nights later. I ended up dropping my J-term class for this month so that I would have time to finish it. I've been able to write pretty much full time for the past two weeks, which has been absolutely wonderful and now has actually paid off. Not to mention meeting Laurie Halse Anderon last Sunday, which kind of inspired me like crazy to keep writing.

I was gonna make some high quality, super professional blog post about the writing process and how good it feels to be done. But who am I trying to kid?

I finished the last sentence (it's currently 123,417 words total), took a deep breath, then played "This Is The New Year" by a Great Big World and had my own little personal dance party (yeah, I'm that lame).

Then I sat and ate cookies with my grandparents in celebration (delicious grain free cookies, to be specific).

Then I blew up my family and friends' phones, calling and texting them with the news, just because I had to share it with more people.

I know it's a rough draft and all, and I still have months and months left to rewrite and revise, but I've gotta say - I'm pretty excited.

Now I'm gonna let it sit for a month, so I can come back to it with fresh eyes. Then the real work begins. My goal is to have it finished and ready to send out to a publishing company by the end of the year (I'm telling you this now so I'm held more accountable to actually following through on that goal).

To be continued...

Oh, and I also took this gem of a photo, just to sum up how it felt to finally hold the draft in my hands.

Peace and blessings to you all.