First Novel = First Child

My good friend and coaching colleague made the best analogy after hearing me kvetch about how mind-taxing my latest round of revisions have been. Like my brain literally hurt. But I do love a challenge.

She said, "That book is like your child."

And I said, "Yeah, and my "child" is in its rebellious teenage years."

She smiled and said, "And sometimes, you just want to quit on them don't you? But you can't and you won't because they're your kid. And you have to just love them through it."

She's one smart cookie.

The book of which I type is my very first novel, written in April of 2008. And then tweaked a grand total of 28 times -- you know, consistency issues, typos, small lines added/removed. And then seriously revised a grand total of 7 times on top of that -- you know entire scenes added, dialogue rewritten, entire scenes removed, brand new beginning.

I love this book. I love my MC and her best friend. I love my story.

Well, as I said in my last post -- you know the one from a week ago -- I've been thick in agent suggested revisions. And I "finished" a readable draft last night at 9:17 p.m. My two uber-kind beta readers will have a polished book to read by tonight...hopefully.

So, my adolescent novel was unruly at first, testing me, wouldn't mind me, punishment didn't even have an affect. I tried "calm cool reasoning" and even a raised voice. But you know what soothed the teenage beast? Consistency.

I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote until I was "done".

What an adventure this writing thing has been...from word one.