Something Like Life

Well, for the first time since I was in 7th grade, I have a finished novel. I finished it over the weekend actually. Total page count hit 300 on the nose and about 62,000 words. I also managed to eek out a title for the thing (which was hard as hell) that I’m still not sure I like. They say that publishers will most likely change the title anyway, so I suppose I’m glad I’m not really all that attached to it anyway.

I finished a book last year too, but it’s non-fiction and the more I looked at it, the more I realized it’s pretty terrible. I tried to write a self-help book last year and I keep looking at it in revisions and stuff and I shake my head at a lot of it. I’m almost at the point where I am just going to put it into adobe format and make it available to anybody who wants it for free. My little gift to those who need a little inspiration. I dunno. Maybe I’ll make something workable out of it someday. Or perhaps I can use some of the chapters as single submissions to magazines or something. I’m just not sure if it’s something that’s going to be worth the effort revising or not to try to submit, so I shelved it a while back.

But now I have a finished novel and I am pleased as a peach. I have yet to read it, though. I’m shelving it until June 1st so that I can come into it with a little fresher perspective before making revisions. Plus I have a whole mountain of books I want to read and taking a little break is giving me the opportunity to read some more. It’s hard as hell, though, for me not to read it. I want to see how it turned out and how well it works as a whole after writing it in parts without re-reading anything I wrote previously.

In other news, I have already begun work on a second novel. I’m about 3000 words into this one (about 16 pages) and I feel like this one is a little more real and going to be a lot more fun. My first novel was kind of geared towards a family audience and that was kind of hard for me to write without saying “fuck” once in a while at least. To make up for that, one of my characters in my new book’s favorite word is “fuck-face”. lol

Since my first one was pretty light-themed and more inspirational on a “Chicken Soup for the Soul” kind of level, I have decided that this one is going to go to the depths of my darker side. I’m going to touch on very mature themes and use coarse language and ideas throughout. I think I write better in darker themes anyway and I feel more like I am in my element with this one.

I assume the first one is just for practice. I’m not sure WHAT people are going to think of it. I think it seemed like a fairly originial idea, but whether or not I pulled it off is still unknown.

I’ll let you know what I think of my book in a few weeks.