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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

A Surreal Feeling: Finishing 'Katherine'

What did I just do? I just finished writing the first draft of Katherine. It doesn't feel real!

I started writing Katherine in June this year. Five months later and she is 25,707 words long. That's 5,707 words over the limit to put her into the Novella competition, but there is still time to edit. My goal over the next few days is to transform her into something a little more concise. I already have an idea which entire scenes I can backspace, although I'll be saving a copy of the first draft for the expected no-win of this competition, so that I can put her into the Text Prize competition next year and whatever else comes along.

The reality of finishing my second full manuscript hasn't quite hit me yet, but I assure you that I am brimming with excitement right now!

How is everybody else going with their writing or revision goals? NaNoWriMo? Do share! I'd love to have a discussion!

- Bonnee.

19 comments:

  1. congraduations Bonnee, i expect to be the first person to see this draft. :)

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    1. LOL Shaun :3 You were basically reading it over my shoulder as I wrote it at school. And I'm pretty sure you already DO have the first few chapters, don't you?

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    2. i just read the first chapter, and if you don't win this compitition bonnee the judges have been bought. It really did feel like i was reading the next best selling book. congraduations again bonnee you really do deserve to win with how much you have put into writing this book and still managing to do year 12.

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    3. Well from what I've gathered, the Novella competition is a prize, but not a publication, so I still need to submit around for that. Care to be my second pair of eyes like you ere for Evergreen? :)

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    4. sure, ok. Sounds fun

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  2. Super excellent Bonnie!!! Congrats a million!! The feeling of finally getting it done, even in a ruff form, is soooooo amazing!)))

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    1. SPELL MY NAME RIGHT OR FEEL MY WRATH! But yes, it is such a fabulous feeling! :) Aah, the excitement is starting to settle in now. Thank you!

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    2. Ok Ok, sooooooory Bonnee!!! I was using a Russian keyboard and I kept messing up! lol

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    3. Hahaha it's ok :3 I didn't know Russians had their own keyboard... I feel slightly more cultured now!

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  3. Congratulations! And good luck with the competition. Two weeks to cut and polish to perfection - no problem, I'm sure.

    As for me, I'm back in spin mode, waiting for comments to come in on one ms, went back and did some tweaks on another, along with a synopsis for it. I've redone my query letter on this one, and feel like I'm *this close* to having it really done. Anyway, congrats again!

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    1. Thanks for your support JeffO. That's great to hear that you're feeling so close to being finished. Best of luck to you!

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  4. Yay! Congratulations on finishing the draft! It's such a bittersweet feeling, isn't it?

    Good luck with edits! That's where I am, too - I had 15,000 words to delete in this final round of revisions (50,000 total) - and am finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel :)

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    1. Aah you have 10,000 words more to get rid of than I did. Now I feel like I had nothing to complain about in the first place. Good luck to you as you close in on your goal!!! :)

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  5. Yay!!!! Congratulations!!!! :)

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  6. oh wow you finished it! :O congrats!!
    is there going to be a Katherine saga? ☻

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    1. Thanks :) No, there won't be a saga. It's definitely just a stand-alone, hahaha :) But I'm so happy about it!

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  7. Congrats, Bonnee for writing the last page of KATHERINE. Cutting 5K+ words shouldn't be a problem, unless you are in love with every page. About two years ago I submitted my first novel to a Novella contest in Canada and also had to cut over 10K words. It seemed easy at first .. just delete and delete. But then I wanted this part to stay and that part to stay. At the end I cut enough to have a novella ... and naturally didn't win. Last time we talked about singers from Australia. Moving around on YouTube I stopped at Jack Vidgen, a teenager singer who won Australia's Got Talent .. a great singer.

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    1. I never really got into Australia's Got Talent, I was more in love with Australian X-Factor, which just had it's finale with winner Samantha Jade.
      So far cutting the words has been easy. I already worked out a couple of parts I could delete, including a whole chapter. Now I've got only about 3K to get rid of and I'm trying to achieve as much of that as I can by rewording unnecessarily long sentences and getting rid of certain details. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who's been in this situation before. Thanks for your support Giora :)

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