Friday, March 31, 2006

Whew...

This was probably the dumbest thing I've done yet as a writer. (And yes, there's plenty of dumb stuff I could choose from.) I found out about a contest for YA fantasy novels in January. I'd been knocking around an idea or two for a YA novel, so I thought, why not? The deadline is...uh...90 days away....

But I did it. Finished it and put it in the mail yesterday, postmarked one day before the deadline.

While I'm very pleased with a lot of the novel, I obviously would have liked a few more weeks (or months) to tweek it a bit. I really wanted to see if I could meet a deadline, even a tight three-month deadline and still write something I felt good about. Am I glad I did it? Sure. Even if it doesn't win or place, I'll still have a novel that I can go back and take my time revising before sending it out again.

But I sure am tired.

6 comments:

tcastleb said...

Hey, good luck with the contest, and congrats on the successful challenge to meet a deadline. And I like the dog; s/he's really pretty. Greyhounds are one of my favorites.

Andy Wolverton said...

Hey, thanks Traci. It feels good to have two novels under my belt (even if the first one will never see the light of day). As he keeps reminding me, my dog Bullet is responsible for all the good scenes in the new one.

Anonymous said...

Wow, you wrote a novel (YA or otherwise) in 90 days? That's impressive.

John said...

Does your head feel lighter from the space where all those words used to be?

You rock, Andy. Good luck.

Dr. Phil (Physics) said...

Definitely one of the plusses for a writer to use contests for a while, is the forced discipline of learning to write to deadlines. Congratulations on getting your YA novel finished and shipped. It's quite an accomplishment, no matter what the results are.

Dr. Phil

Dr. Phil (Physics) said...

Well, they do do more than eat, and that's a "problem", too. The do-do, I mean... (grin)

Dr. Phil