Holy fuck, I completed the first draft of my third attempt at writing a book. My first attempt was something like ten years ago, and I managed to write about 49k words before I ran out of steam and abandoned it. My second book attempt was a mix of a series of short stories leading up to the book and I managed to write 36 out of 52 planned shorts and about half the book before becoming completely discouraged on the direction it was taking. I shelved the whole project with the intent that I would one day return to it.
This third attempt was far less … ambitious. On November 1st of last year, I sat down to write with no plan, no plot, no outline, no idea, nothing. Just a whole lot of gumption and a desire to get something out. I decided that every time I sat down to work on this story, I would do so without premeditation of what would transpire. I expected what would flow out of my fingertips would be a whole lot of nonsense, and that the entire experience would be naught more than an exercise in distaste.
But it wasn’t.
I started writing a goddamn horror story and I was hooked. I read it to my partner and she was hooked. I read it to my friends and they were hooked. And the further I got into writing the damn thing, the more I wanted to read it. I wrote the final words to the shitty first draft maybe an hour and a half ago and I’m so fucking excited to get started on the editing, to bring it to a point where it’s generally readable, before sending out copies to my bookish friends whom I trust to provide beneficial feedback.
Then more edits. Then off to a professional editor. Then to shop it around to publishers.
I already want the finished product in my hands. I’m so fucking stoked it’s written. But it’s garbage at the moment. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of word soup and word vomit curdling under the afternoon sun. It needs some deep cleaning. So off I go to do some deep cleaning.
Anyway, here’s a poster of the gorgeous @satrinna from her luscious set Pink Skin:
