One Down, Five to Go

 
This afternoon I typed "THE END of Gunwitch", signalling the completion of the first draft of that novel–a mere 3 years and 2 months after first starting work on it during Nanowrimo 2007.
 
I didn't need to finish that book. But, yeah, I did. Gunwitch, an alternate history fantasy of the early colonial period, was too good an idea to throw away. That said, it will be fun to see how well I manage to blur the line between the first half of the book, written November 2007 through January 2008, and the last half the book, written over the past couple months, during the editing I do later this year.
 
The finished first draft weighs in just a few words shy of 100K. Which is a far cry from what I thought the final word count would be back in early 2008 when I decided to drop the project (150K), and also less than I first thought it would be when I picked the project back up again in November (120K). Will the book grow in editing? Or shrink? Another question I look forward to answering later this year.
 
This gives me my first completed novel of 2011. Only five more to go reach my goal for the year.
 
I'm excited! Even if this means I probably won't hit 15K words this week as I try to get my next novel lined up. I'll see about writing a few short stories to "bridge the gap".
 
-David