The song began each morning before the roosters took their first yawns. It began after the stars had faded into a thin bluing screen and around the time the wind first breathed through the dewy grass. The coolness that perfects sleep dissipated with a final chill, and the village stirred.

When the Song Meets the Sun

These words are the opening of this year’s novel “When the Song Meets the Sun.” I adopted a more detailed meandering pace. I hoped that it would give a more realistic and grounded feeling. This included extensive lore in the form of bedtime stories, songs, festivals, and daydreams that I quite enjoyed writing.

In truth the story turned out better than I had anticipated — since I had planned very little of it out beforehand — but this draft has become an absolute disaster. In order to keep up with my word count each week, I skipped back and forth through the book to the inspirational moments that I wanted to write and filled in the middle later. While it kept me going, it has left gaping holes and a mostly unfinished ending. I plan to let it rest for now and finish the true first draft by the end of next year. But we’ll see how distracted I get before then.

50,000 words in 30 days is a feat that I have now completed 4 times in my 12 attempts to date. It is such a surreal feeling to be done, to realize that I met the goal, and that I do not have to stress or stay up late or anything. It is a similar feeling to having finished a really good book and not knowing what to do with myself next.

So how did I do it? *Adopts a professor’s tone* As you can see here on the graph, I utilized those esteemed days at the terminus of the work week dedicated to rest as nourishment and propellant for that most glorious of tasks: transcribing the illustration of the imagination into the linguistical anomaly that is English.

In other words, I used my weekends to catch up.

I also rewarded myself for various goals with treats, generally edible: including popcorn, hot chocolate, and homemade truffles. And mostly, I made certain to update my wordcount every day, even if it was only with a single word.

What are my next steps? Outside of vaguely attempting to finish the first draft by filling in all the plot holes and missing transitions by the end of next year, I do not know. The story came together well, so it may yet have a future, but I can tell it is going to take a lot of work, so it will not be ready for beta-readers for several years to come.

That is honestly as disppointing to me as it is to everyone who asks when they can read it, but it’s true. As Terry Pratchett famously said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”