I did it! And with time to spare?

So this is the bottle of champagne my insanely amazing husband popped last night (and beside it a gift my insanely amazing husband bought me one time when I was sad).  Why the champagne?

 Around 11:30 PST on April 1, I finished a novel.  What?  No, this isn't an April Fool's joke.  I actually finished a novel, from start to finish, in three months!

This is a huge accomplishment for me.  I've written two novels before this one.  The first (which will never see the light of day) took me a year to write.  The second, (Book 1 in the series I'm now writing) took about 10 months to write the first draft.  And then I spent another five years (yes you read that right) rewriting that first draft.

Okay, so I had a full time-job then and I lived close to my large family and decent sized group of friends, which meant the distractions were endless and the time was more limited, but still.

THREE MONTHS!?!?  Honestly I didn't think I was capable of doing it.  Now through the ROW80 writing challenge I participated in, from January to the end of March, I realize with just hitting a smallish word count goal per day I can do a lot more much quicker!

I also have to say, in my last week of writing away, coffee was a big help.  I never drink coffee.  It usually makes me crazy.  But I sacrificed the crazies (well, I didn't actually go crazy this time) to help fuel some serious speed writing, especially near the end.

Is the book good?  No, it's probably terrible.  There are holes, and weird plot things going on and some overall bad prose.  But it's a first draft.  And what's my new motto for a first draft?

Get it written.  Then get it right!  (I read that recently in this book).

And there you have it.

Now I am officially taking a bit of a break, which also means a bit of a break from blogging.

During this break I plan to just feel the joy and gratitude of making it to this accomplishment, because despite the worry that I'm wasting my life on something that may never become what I hope it will be, I'm grateful I get to try.

And to all of you out there — most of whom I know personally and perhaps a few that I don't — thank you for your support.  Thank you for your love.  And thank you for helping me hold on to this dream of mine, regardless of how many years go by.

Great big love to you all xx