Novel Writing 10: The End is the Beginning.

That’s a wrap!

I officially downed writing tools at 4:30pm yesterday, in the rather picturesque Reading Room at the State Library of Victoria, where I’ve written a sizeable chunk of my second novel manuscript.

But even though I’ve now wrapped up the first draft, it really does feel like a beginning, rather than an end. One thing I’ve learnt in my journey as a writer is not to kick back when you think something’s good enough; there’s more work to do!

The major work I’ll be focusing on in the coming weeks will be checking the plot consistency between my first and second manuscripts. I know there’ll be plenty of retrospective changes to my first manuscript as a result of where the plot is heading now.

From the outset, I always planned to write a trilogy to tell this story, and that’s what I’ll have soon enough. I’ve got some rough notes for the third novel, but I want to keep these fairly loose as I start work of tightening up my original manuscript – things may need to move significantly!

And so that’s it. Two books down, one to go. I’ve recently found a song that sums up where I’m at in my writing journey. “Remain” by Mutemath also perfectly sums up the tone I’ll be going for in the final novel of this series. To quote the song:

Just keep trying,

Just keep fighting,

Just keep going,

Just keep surviving.

Just keep walking,

Just keep breathing,

Just keep going,

Just keep believing.

I will.