First draft complete!

I finished the first draft of The Exclusive yesterday afternoon! I ended up with about 82,000 words. I imagine I'll add 2,000-3,000 words in the next draft to clean up a few things related to the ending. I'm now in the same place I was about a month ago, when I blogged about what I wanted to write next.

Yep, exact same situation right now. The Exclusive gets shelved for a while--probably three weeks to a month--before I start going back through it. I'll come up with a revision plan and work on improving the book during its first revision. After that, it will go off to Beta Reader Supreme for both a bigger-picture look and a proofread. After that, more revisions.

My thoughts on the process of writing a first draft via Twitter:

2,000 words today! That wraps up the first draft of my WIP. Time to put it aside & try to forget how awful a first draft can be. #amwriting

— Matt Adams (@statomatty) April 8, 2014

Now I have to figure out what to write next. This is perhaps my least favorite thing ever.

— Matt Adams (@statomatty) April 8, 2014

It's so much easier for me to actually work on a project than it is to pick the next thing to write.

— Matt Adams (@statomatty) April 8, 2014

I've got a list of things I can work on next. Just need to pick one and outline it. I love outlines. Kind of.

— Matt Adams (@statomatty) April 8, 2014

I've started the querying process on one of my novels. I haven't seriously queried a novel in a very long time. In my next blog post, I'll write a little about why it's taken so long for me to query projects. I'm sure it'll be a thrill.

Updates and some events

It's been pretty quiet in the writing world lately. I'm polishing, polishing, polishing the "untitled space station novel."

I've also been working very hard on a new project called The Exclusive. The genre--paranormal suspense--isn't exactly in my comfort zone, but it also deals with a paranormal event and the TV news business, so I can definitely handle the finer points of the latter. I got a little messy with defining my pseudo-religious "magic" system, so I certainly have some work to do when I hit revisions.

I'm about 73,000 words into it, which means I'm rounding third and heading for home on this novel. I'm fully aware that the book is a bit of a narrative mess at the moment. When I finish the first draft, I'll leave it alone for about a month, make some revisions to tie everything together, and send it off to Beta Reader Supreme.

A brutal Indiana winter meant a lot of writing time but little time to get out among the people. Thankfully, I was able to make it to a couple events recently.

That Book Place in Madison, Ind., holds its annual Authors Fair in March. I attended the event as an author for the first time. The place is usually jam-packed during this event, but the Milton-Madison Bridge linking Indiana to Kentucky was closed this year and you could definitely tell. It's still nice to meet a few people and mingle with other authors.

I went to Hanover College this weekend for the school's annual Geek-a-Thon. It's basically a small comic-con, and this year's theme was the very Crimsonstreak-friendly "DC vs. Marvel."

My wife made this lovely gift basket, which was available in a silent auction for charity.

We met several students and had a nice time hanging out with some of the other guests. Attendance was generally light, but I think it was worth the trip down there.

Between the two events, I made a few sales, met a lot of great people, and mingled with some author friends I haven't seen in a while. All worth it, in my book.