Every Thursday, I go to the 24-hour restaurant where Sean and I work to get away from the distractions of the Internet and write. Last night, I hit a landmark in writing my novel: 50,000 words. I still have a long way to go, both with writing and editting, but hitting 50k words feels like a huge achievement to me even if it isn't that big of a deal. It's the most I've ever written for one piece.
It seems like it's taken me forever to get to this point, but the hardest part of writing a story for me is beginning it. I started actually writing it in July of this year, typing only a few paragraphs a day before I was spent. After I finally completed three chapters, I had some friends read it and the momentum begin. I rewrote what I had and started churning out words. Hopefully, this momentum will continue and I can have my novel done by early 2011.
I really hope that the final product will be decent enough to publish. I'm not looking forward to the piles of rejection letters, but I am looking forward to the day where I'll get that note in the mail that it says it'll be published. I mean, there are some really terrible books out there, so if they can do it, why can't I?
Every author, no matter how famous and how many rejections they've received, have been rejected at one time or another by a publishing. Here are a couple of famous authors and their rejection numbers before they hit that big break:
J.K. Rowling: 12
Pearl S. Buck: 13
William Golding: 20
James Joyce: 22
Madeleine L'Engle: 26
Dr. Seuss: 27
Stephen King: 30
Margaret Mitchell: 38
Keep writing!!
Congratulations! It's always great to hear about people reaching landmakrs, in both their writing, and personal goals. How much more do you think you have in you?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm roughly halfway done, so I'd say anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 more words to go.
ReplyDelete