Mystery Project One

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Done. I declare this novel done!

Very late at night or very early in the morning depending on how you look at it. I finished up the last details I had to work on for my lovely little novel, completing the gold bar for he first time!

This has been an experience, but completing the draft isn’t the end either. I’ve already taken the novel and sent it off out into the world. What reception will it receive? Unknown.

For now.

I’ll be sure to keep you updated as I find out more myself.

But for now, I’m off to sleep. More things to do tomorrow. Hmm… which story to work on next…

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Tonight I finished the 4th edit pass on the novel. I enjoyed working on this pass because I put on my earphones and had the program read the book to me, making corrections as it went. Getting to hear the story is a different experience, and I can definitely appreciate preferring audio books (thought audio books are a bit more fun that obviously computer generated voices) .

How much more do I have to do? Only what I can get done before the deadline ahead of the month. This week I will be completing the project! I’m excited for completion, and for having worked on a new challenge. I’ll have to ponder what challenge to pick up after this one.

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This evening, I completed edit pass number 3! Or what felt more like edit passes 3-15. The last pass was all about rearranging chapters. This pass I hunted down the silly little words that like to creep into a story and make sure the names were consistent and such. There might have been (definitely was) correcting of other errors as I read through the text again and again.

Was this the last pass? Nope. No gold bar for me yet.
Am I getting closer? Yes, Yes, I am.

Where edit pass four takes me, I don’t know yet. Tonight I’m getting some sleep though.

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Late last night (or early this morning depending on how you count it), I finished edit pass number 2. Yes, this one went much more quickly where the pass focused on restructuring the chapters of the books. This pass went faster in part because during pass 1 I made notes on what needed to happen.

I have begun edit pass 3 as well. This one won’t be quite as quick, but I’m enjoying where this project is going.

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Late last night, I completed the first edit pass on this project. Also, known as the slow pass, but this pass gave me a better feel for the structure overall. I’m now better prepared to begin edit pass 2. Followed by 3. Followed by… well we’ll see how I’m feeling when I get that far.

The work continues, but the end is in sight.

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On May 17th I started my Mystery Project with an initial goal of 30k words. Now, one month into the project, I’m ecstatic to be back with my latest story report.

I wrote two amazing little words for it: the end!

Whew, what a month this has been. I’ve had a great time challenging myself and making strides I hadn’t imagined when I started. But for tonight, I think I’ll take the evening off. Edits can wait for tomorrow to begin. I do still have to get this ready to submit!

For those of you eying the word total on my progress bars (and who read the first update) this ended up significantly over the initial word goal and topped 56k. Hello project, you are officially novel length.

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Today I reached 100% of my goal for this project!

And kept writing past the goal of 30k words. This was not surprising to me. I’ve suspected with growing certainty as I approached 30k that the story would not be done there, and that’s just fine. For the contest I started this story for 30k was the low end of the permissible word range. Words are not my enemy just now. Time is.

Still, I’m ecstatic to have made the 30k words in just 18 days of writing since I started the draft on May 17, 2023. (Two of those days I took breaks from writing even).

I’d better keep going and see where this story ends up. I’m loving the ride!