Happy Birthday, 2/3!

That's two out of three in the title, if it's hard to tell, but I'm not going to change it. Finished my second book this year last night, coming in at a respectable 58,308 words. It was finished exactly a month after my first. I started off at 11k, so I only wrote 47k for the book in the last 30 days, but add to that my short stories, my blog posts, and I'm closer to 60, 65 thousand words for the last thirty days. Puts me in a pretty good spot for NaNo, doesn't it? I don't have my word count journal right in front of me, which is probably a blessing for you readers, who don't have to listen to me regale you again and again with numbers you probably don't care about.

Second book under my belt, and it feels a lot different than the first. The first was much more of a labor of love, I guess, and my dungeon crawl was a pet project. My epic fantasy had a sadder ending, at least for me, just because of the fact that it was over. I have over a hundred pages of notes, it took ten months to finish, even though most of that time I was going about it very slowly. Long before my 10k word weeks.  I also wrote a great deal of it out by hand, at least 80 thousand words of it.  It takes up three notebooks, with notes.  I'm getting excited to write the second one, but I think I might be over that stage of writing by hand.  It's so much easier to write it on the computer and be done with it, but it takes away that chance at a brief first edit as I transcribe it.  I don't know, pros and cons.  My dungeon crawl (tentative title The Eye of Agras, what do you think?) was written entirely on computer, and I was so jazzed to write the first fifty pages I wrote about ten thousand words in three days, a feat I haven't managed to duplicate since.  Also, I'm realizing that after a certain point, let's say, next month when I finish my NaNo book, people will start expecting me to be cranking out novels once a month, and I might not get the kind of 'congratulations' that I expected when I finished the first one.  Sure, I may make it look easy (excuse me, my hubris is showing) but that doesn't mean I don't struggle daily to tell this story.  Maybe I need more writer friends.  

Also, do you know what day it is?  That's right, it's the 27th!  Time to read and start editing my first book!  I'm really very excited.  I won't get a chance today, because I have to close tonight at work and I have school up until then, but maybe tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, definitely Friday.  The editing process!  I have never, ever ever read my own book.  This will be a first for me, I will never get another chance to read one of my own books for the first time.  It will be a learning experience, I'm hoping.  If it's a total failure in my eyes, it's good to learn that now, so I can start fixing the problems I see in my writing.  After the editing (No idea when that will be, with NaNo, maybe January?  February, at the latest?) I can send copies to friends, get their input, and start making the book even better.  I just cannot tell you how exciting this is for me.  I'm nervous, and anxious, but mostly just... invigorated.  I can't wait.  I'm also looking forward to recording here what I think of the story, the characters, the writing...  I've always been a reader, and a prolific one, though that's faded somewhat with my new writing habit.  How will I read my own words?  What style do I have that I don't even know about?  Sometime in the next few days, folks, I'll know, and shortly thereafter, so will you!

I hope everyone is having as fantastic of a day as I'm having.  Write well, plan your novels carefully (if that's your thing) and just... just be happy.  Life is beautiful, and being alive is the greatest gift that was ever given to us.  See you tomorrow!