A book is born

The book is done!!!!

The Strange Chronicles: Book 1 - The Mighty Orange-Peel (first draft) was finished last night 8 August, at 9:30 pm in Edinburgh, Scotland weighting in at a healthy 17 Chapters, 125 pages (A4 1.5 spaced),  52,000 words. It will obviously change and grow as edits are made and an epilogue is developed. But, no matter what, it is novel! And, in the cold hard light of day, the final chapter still reads well!

It was a long process. I started writing the book early 2010 (I still remember the moment I 'found' Gemmy's face and writing really took off). I'm over the moon with how well it's turned out. I've reread the first half and it feels like a book. So, I'm confident the second half, which I finished much faster, has the same depth even though the pace of writing and story is much faster.

My favourite part of writing so far has been seeing how the story has developed. In my outline it was meant to be 15 chapters. The way the final book has actually taken shape is so much more different to what I'd intended. The characters have grown and changed with the story and it’s been just as much an adventure for me finding out what was going to happen. The major plot points haven’t changed, but the characters’ reactions to situations have become more organic and truer to the characters. Also, the world that I established changed. So, plot devices I’d planned for suddenly didn’t make sense. What I’d planned to go A, B, C, D ended up A, F, Z, B, D.

So, now begins the process of rationalising the book. I’m sure there’s a plot hole somewhere, a few mistyped names (Mhetli became Mehtli for about two chapters), superfluous sentences, areas needing to be expanded, etc. But, my beautiful book has been born.

It’s been crazy and fun getting the characters and story to the place where it’s at. So, I’m going to do my preliminary edits, celebrate and let the baby rest for a week, play Lego Harry Potter (finally), read A Hero for Wondla (finally), maybe do some more illustrations and then come back with fresh eyes! 

On a side note, I absolutely can't wait to get it printed and bound - by my own fair hand of course. Definitely going to have a party then.

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