One small step for (wo)man, one giant leap for authorkind!

Today, I have reached a milestone. 88,000 words! It's the longest thing I've ever written, and several times longer than most things I've written. It's not finished, not by a long shot, but hopefully it will be before Thanksgiving or Christmas break, which means I'll be able to print it out and bind it at the office, and start editing! Considering the fact that it's taking me years to do the same for my first finished novel (which is about 10,000 words shorter), I'm not sure how long this one will take me. Perhaps I'll get around to it more often. At the moment, it's also the best thing I've written, but it's by no means good! It's a rough, rough copy. Good thing this is my hobby, and I don't have any deadlines! I love not being under pressure.

If you're curious, it's about 140 pages in Word, single-spaced, but that's including half-pages at the ends of chapters. It's 18.5 chapters so far, and my chapters range from 6 to 9 pages long, although they are generally 7 or 8.

It's difficult to work up the courage and patience for writing of any kind, so my advice to anybody in my boat is to just make time to write in the evenings. Five minutes is all it takes sometimes, although usually my five minutes runs into an hour or two. If I haven't come up with anything to write in five minutes, then I quit for the day. I don't force it. My personal advice is to let the writing flow. Things seem to work out better that way.

Although sometimes you just have to push through to get to the part you've been waiting for. :)