Pamela Weis

I just finished writing an entire freaking novel! I’m a little stunned, I mean, sure, it’s a first draft, so it’s incredibly rough, and it’s my first one so…it probably stinks. But who cares! I did it!

It was my NaNoWriMo project. I finished with a little over 50,000 words at the end of November, but the story was not yet over. And now, a month and a half later, it’s done. My first complete historical fiction (or any kind of fiction) book. It might be a YA novel. It might not be. I’m not sure. I still don’t have a handle on this whole YA thing. But it doesn’t matter right now because wheeeee!!!

Sorry, I’m just a little overwhelmed. I feel like there should be champagne. I’m in a hotel. I could order room service, I suppose. But…nah, I’m going out with colleagues tomorrow. I’ll quietly toast my accomplishment then. Because of course, no one I work with knows about this writing stuff. Hardly anyone I know…knows. I’ve been through grad school. I know the pain and discomfort of someone asking, “so how’s your thesis coming along? What are studying again?” and feeling completely helpless to answer in any way that would be even remotely interesting to them, non-esoteric, and/or brief. That’s what this is like. It’s my unique, imperfect little baby and it’s impossible to explain it at this point. It’s been an incredible learning experience and I want to keep doing it! But I don’t want to talk about it. I mean, okay, I’ll blog about it, but I’m not giving plot details or anything.

So yeah, I haven’t been too open about this fiction thing. I will spill the beans gradually over time. For now, I just want to bask in this huge feeling of accomplishment. I wrote a whole damn novel! Yeah!