Refining Eden

Yesterday I finished the first draft of my first novel attempt, Eden. Most of it was written during this year's and last year's NaNoWriMo, with a few thousand words added this month. Now I'm starting to realize that writing a 240-page rough draft consisting in longhand is actually the easy part. Next come the tedious (transcribing it into a word processing program) and the challenging (more research, backfilling, fact-checking, proof-reading and who knows how many revisions) parts before I get anywhere near to completing a finished novel.

I've never tackled a writing project that even approaches this magnitude. I suppose I'll break the draft down into manageable sections, and refine-and-polish one section at a time to make the task seem a bit less impossible. Otherwise, if I tried to tackle it beginning-to-end, I could see myself getting bogged down and giving up rather quickly. I simply have to fight through that temptation, and remind myself that this is a labor of love (or should be) that could easily take several years to finish. Especially since I won't be quitting my full-time job or abandoning my family in pursuit of this far-flung dream.

Wish me luck.