The Edit, Part Six: I've Done It

It's finished.

Alfred Sisley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I've finished my novel.

At the beginning of the year, it was four nested and connected stories about death. The largest was 51,000 words long. Now the novel is just this largest story, given much more space to breathe. Counting an appendix, it's 137,000 words, longer than The Return of the King but shorter than The Two Towers. Bits of the other three stories found their way in. My estimate is that alongside major editing, I wrote 70k or so new words this year. A better writer would not have taken such a circuitous route -- but now I'm a better writer.

I have never put in as much effort into a project as I have into this. It's been in my head for five years. For the last two years, writing and editing it have been my constant focus -- I'd shower and get ideas, I'd wash dishes and get ideas, I'd fall asleep working on mnemonics for ideas to recall in the morning, I’d write and edit near-daily. I researched ecosystems, rituals, myths, unconventional weapons, and an unreasonable amount of etymology. I've poured my heart into it, and it's going to be weird next year to not have the characters and images crowding my mind.

My New Year’s resolution was to submit it by the end of the year -- but the agent I intend to submit it to first (unless you, dear reader, are a literary agent!) doesn't have their window open until later in January. So, with my email to them drafted, I count the year as complete. I've achieved my goal for 2024!

Thanks are owed to many friends who’ve reviewed sections. Incredible thanks go out to my wonderful fiancée, who's put up with my obsession over the last two years and reviewed the entire novel in November. She highlighted some big issues with it around clarity, dropped threads, and the protagonist's competence. I owe her forever.

One of the hundreds of helpful comments from my fiancée

I worked furiously in December to fix these issues, using vacation time I've saved up this year at work. Now I have a story that I'm happy to submit. I'm proud of myself for deciding that though there were big issues, they could have simple solutions (sometimes clarity just needs a sentence!).

I'll have another post on 2024 in the coming days. For now, I'm so happy, and I can't wait to see what comes of it next year!