I finished my book!!!

Photo by Jas Min on Unsplash

September 30th, 11:39 p.m. I wrote the final word of a first draft I’ve been working on since 2019!!!! 🥹🥹🥹🥳🥳🥳😁😁😁🤩🤩🤩😭😭😭

I won’t be sharing anything in terms of genre, characters, setting, etc. You will find out more about this book whenever it is published someday. But here are a few tidbits about it:

1. The final day (September 30th) I wrote 2,044 words (approximately 8 pages)! I stayed up to finish and it was super exciting trying to write the last words before the clock struck twelve. I was trying to finish the book before October.

2. The word count for this first draft is approximately 217,912 words, and the page count is approximately 871! It’s been a dream of mine for some time now to write a grand epic the size of a Harry Potter book. So I was so happy and surprised when the words and pages were tallied and I discovered I’m around the size of the largest Harry Potter book, The Order of the Phoenix!! (I googled it and it looks like the page count for OTP kinda varies based on the edition. But it's somewhere in the 800 page zone.)

3. I began this book March of 2019 and wrote the last word in September of 2024. Thus, it took me 5 and a half years to write. There were many, many obstacles that contributed to me taking that long. And while they were extraordinarily frustrating, I'm not as mad about them as I used to be. Now that I am older, I understand that a lot of art is like pot roast, and needs to be properly simmered for some time. I now actually believe that, depending on the art, it is okay to take years, even decades, to work on something beautiful in the quiet before sharing it with the world. So, even though it was not my choice to take so long, I am hoping the years that passed grew me in all the right ways to make this story just what it needed to be for such a time as this.

    It's been quite the exhilarating thing to finally be finished. To have overcome, by God's strength, all that was holding me back. I'm so, so grateful. And so excited to write more stories. 

🎧🎧🎧

    Now, then. Besides mere stats, I wanted to give you a bit of the feeling for the theme and aesthetic of the story. So below are some songs that either helped inspire elements of the book or just feel like elements of the book. 

    I really value your time, so if you don’t want to listen to all of the songs, just play the last one, "Valor" by Christy Nockels. It most represents the main theme of the book.

"Sound the Bugle". Bryan Adams

"Still that Girl". Britt Nicole

"Honest". Thousand Foot Krutch

"You'll Play Your Part". My Little Pony

"Forbidden Friendship". John Powell

"It Doesn't Hurt Anymore!" Mark McKenzie 

"Burn The Ships". for KING and COUNTRY

"This is Where I Belong". Bryan Adams 

"Courage and Kindness". Patrick Doyle  

"Lean back (Live)". Capital City Music 

"Valor". Christy Nockels 

    Thanks so much for reading! And have a very merry Christmas!!! 

Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash