First Draft Complete!

I have finished the first draft of Hide and See!  Yipee!  *Confetti*

On the whole, I think I'm pretty pleased with it.  Of course I haven't read it all the way through yet so that might well change as soon as I do.  But I'm letting it stew.  If I go back and read it now I'll read what I wanted to have written, not what I actually have.

And so now I've moved on to writing the latest chunk of the secondary-world fantasy novel (or trilogy of novels) which I began about seven years ago.  I started it on my older brother's request and have given him sections of it for special occasions ever since - birthdays, Christmas, that sort of thing.  I normally gave him some when he went to the US and came home again, as he did every summer for several years.  This year was the first that he didn't go so there have been rather fewer chapters than normal.

The last time I wrote some of this novel was in March for his birthday - and I left it on quite a bit of a cliffhanger.  Major character death.  Oops.  And I really hadn't intended to leave it so long but the whole Hide and See thing happened and here I am, nine months later, and I need to dive right back into the story again.

I re-read the last section on Monday night, ready to use my train journey up to Bath on Tuesday to plot out what I was going to write.  The original plan I wrote several years ago has morphed a fair bit since then so I tend to re-think a lot, although the major events and the ending have pretty much stayed the same.

The planning flowed quite naturally, I am pleased to say, and I managed to plot not only the section I'm going to write but also the rest of the novel (which, being the third, would complete the first draft of the trilogy).  I don't know when I'll actually get round to writing all this but planning it out in my weird little flow-charts did make it seem a little more manageable.  Or maybe I've just got into a finishing-first-draft mood lately.

I started writing the actual section this afternoon.  I've only got about 700 words in but it's better than nothing.  The sections I write tend to be around 6-7k and I should imagine (fingers crossed) that I'll be able to get it done by Christmas Eve.  This is providing that Real Life doesn't get in the way.

Because, alas, it looks like that might be a possibility.

I have a job interview tomorrow.  Now, this is the point where I should be going 'YAY!  A chance at employment!  At last!'  Unfortunately, I am a neurotic head-case and thus have been a churning mess of anxiety since the recruitment agency phoned this afternoon.  I have only had one proper interview in my life before and I didn't even apply for that job.  I wasn't really that committed to getting it.  I figured it'd be good experience and just went along for the ride.

This time, it feels like there's rather more at stake.  I've been out of uni and among the (growing) unemployed masses for several months now.  I really should be getting a job and not being a bum.  And yet the idea of the interview and the possibility of a subsequent first day at work fill me with something rather close to terror.

And I'm worried that I won't have as much time to write.  Which makes me grumpy.

So in summary: I am stressed at the idea of the interview, grumpy at the thought of not writing, and annoyed at myself for not being happy about finally getting a job interview.  Good times all round.

And there's an opportunity to apply for an internship (paid or unpaid, I don't yet know) at the Jane Austen House Museum coming up early next year which, let's face it, pretty much sounds like my idea of bliss.  But if I have to be a grown-up-type-person I probably won't be able to do that.  Seriously: Jane Austen, all day.  In her house.  Jane Austen.  That author who I tend to randomly drop into all other subject matters or go crazy-ranty if someone calls her work chick-lit.  Yeah: I want.

Okay, I think that's me done whinging for now.  Let me check... yep, I'm done.  Blogs are like free therapy.

To conclude with an upside, did I mention that I'd finished the first draft of Hide and See this week?  Here's me, ending on a 'Whoop whoop'!