This morning, barely 15 minutes ago, in a Starbucks in London, I finished writing the first draft of my romance novel, code named Arcadian. I’m so excited!!! I had thought that it would be finished yesterday but the final chapter became two final chapters as it worked better that way. In total it’s currently 135,000 words which is a bit long but it’s the kind of story that you would have difficulty compressing into 100,000 words. There’s a lot of plot as well as romance, which is what I think makes a good romance novel.
I only started writing this on the 27th January 2009, and I had a week’s holiday around the middle of February in which I only wrote 6000 words, so I’m really happy that it’s finished so soon. I’m not one for meddling as I write. I’m of the “get it written, then get it right” school of thinking. Still, 135,000 words in only 5 weeks (less a good chunk for my off week) isn’t bad at all. It’s probably fairly close to a record for me and really helps me figure out my timings as I had allowed 8 weeks to write this story. I have a seven book series which I want to write and all the stories in that will likely be 100,000 words so seeing the timings on this one will help me figure out how long it’s going to take me to write those ones.
Now all I have to do is leave it for a few weeks and get on with other writing work. I can’t edit it straight away as the story is too firmly set in my mind and I won’t do a good job on the second draft. The plan is to leave it for 4 weeks while I write another novella (the fifth Daughters of Lyra story – a science fiction romance ebook series which I’m releasing this year) and do some editing on much-neglected stories such as Winter’s Kiss.
I think that I’ll have this story ready to send out to publishers in October, which is exciting. I’m determined to go through with it since I chickened out and didn’t send Seventh Circle out as I had planned to (I think the Harlequin Nocturne Bites rejections threw me a little, but look at how well those two short stories did for me as ebooks!). Both my husband and my friend have said that I’ll find an excuse not to send it and say I’ll send the next novel I write, so I’m going to prove them wrong. I truly believe that this romance novel is highly publishable and the kind of story that readers love, so I want to give it my best shot. I really do have faith in it and that this will be my first paperback published novel (since I’ve already been e-published).
Some of you lovely readers have been asking me about Winter’s Kiss and what stories I’ll be releasing this year. I’m going to write a big post, or a few smaller posts, about those this weekend and give you some tasters and dates so you can see what I have up my sleeve. I’m really excited about the Daughters of Lyra stories as I’m sure you’ll all love them. Don’t worry, Winter’s Kiss might have been delayed because of a need for a major second draft, but I’ll be working on it soon so you won’t have too long wait!
F
