book writing

82,000 Words Later

Guys, I finally finished the first draft of my first novel. You know, the one I started in 2016 😂

Book editing at Starbucks

If you haven’t been reading my blog that long, I started writing a novel for fun in 2016 and plugged away at it… until life got in the way. We brought home a puppy and worked on therapy dog training, then had a baby, then got another dog, I started an Etsy shop, and Jimmy became a co-owner of his family’s business. Lots of life changes since 2016, basically! The book was always in the back of my mind, though.

I recently had another story idea for a totally different book and wanted to start writing that out, but I just couldn’t begin until I finished my first one. So, I pulled up the document on my laptop and saw that the last time I had worked on it was April 2018, the spring before Sader Tot was born!

Coffee and Mac laptop Macbook

Working from my memory of the characters and plot, I decided to wrap it up and… suddenly it was done! 82,000+ words and a few years later!

Right now, I’m thinking of having it printed in book format (like a paperback) and having a few family members read it to see what they think. Jimmy literally had no idea what the book was about until a few days ago. I was always so shy about it 🙈

It’s funny, I think of the book idea and plot now and it feels like a lifetime ago. I literally feel like a different person wrote that book, if that makes sense? I am pretty different than I was in 2016–or at least my life is. I don’t know if I will pursue publishing it. I’ll have to read it from start to finish and see what I think 😆

Past posts about writing the book:
–Sharing that I was starting to write a book
–More info on my writing process
–Working on staying dedicated
–An Update on the book in 2018

Have you ever taken on a big project that took longer than you anticipated?

How’s The Book Going?

If you’ve been reading my blog for a few years, you may remember I started writing a book in 2016.

I picked away at it in my free time over the past few years, and I’m literally so close to being done with the first draft. I’ve been saying that for months because I haven’t worked on it in months!

Life has been busy, but I haven’t given up on my little writing adventure. I recently took a peek at the document and saw that I was a little over 81,000 words into the book.

I didn’t think I could just jump back into writing without rereading the whole book since it had been a few months since I last wrote so I took a plunge and had my draft printed as is.

I ordered from a website that binds and publishes books for a great price, so I didn’t feel too bad spending $10 (including shipping!) to have a copy of my almost-finished book printed, coil bound (for easy editing!), and shipped to my door.

Girl holding first draft of novel

Jimmy and I were leaving the house and there was my book in our mail slot! I had him take a picture to commemorate the moment 🙂

Now I can have the book physically in front of me as a hard copy to read and edit. After I do that, I’ll work on finishing this baby up! I can’t wait. At the same time I’m crazy nervous and also dreading the editing process. I have all kinds of feelings about this, basically 😉

As I mentioned before, I’m not sure if I’ll pursue publishing it. It just depends on whether or not I like the story line and how I wrote it. I’m okay with that because it has been fun to explore different topics through the creative outlet of writing. We’ll see!

Just wanted to give an update since I’ve had a few people ask if I’m still working on it!