There’s nothing like writing “THE END” (must be all caps, for me at least) on a first draft, and I wrote just that this morning! Yippee!

Of course, there’s still much to accomplish during revisions, but I have my story, verbose as it may be. I overwrite my first drafts — too much description, too much repetition, too much explanation of what I’ve effectively shown — but I don’t mind. I have tons of material with which to work: a comfort.

Some novelists underwrite their first drafts — so lean they gotta pig out on words during revisions to add complications and subplots and descriptions and character development.

Either way, right? As long as we have that first draft in hand!

Now, I’ll enjoy a summer vacation (woo hoo) — for a few weeks at least — if I can possibly stand the hiatus. I’m going to…what am I going to do with myself while my first draft cools off?

Oh my, oodles of open-endedness. My mind just went blank…

I’ve been working on this thing for a year. I’m so relieved I feel like melting. I am melting. I am, in fact, already melted. Melted feels delicious.