Today may be my birthday, but this weekend I gave myself the best present ever. I finished my first novel! It came to a grand tally of 71,194 words, and an additional 10k words of research, pre-writing and character development. That’s about 325 pages!
Actually when I say I gave myself this marathon of words as a present, that isn’t totally true. I could never have done it without the support and encouragement of my selfless husband and fantastic kiddos. They pulled extra weight around here and cheered me on every step of the way.
The other misconception is that this actually means I’m done with my book. Au contraire! Most books are rewritten 6 to 10 times before being published, and so I know this is just a beginning.
But, as one of my favorite authors likes to say, I’ve shoveled all the sand into the sandbox with the first draft, and now I get to sculpt and mold it into something awesome.
Sarah Lynne John 
I love the comment about all the sand having been shoveled in the sand box. Congratulations on the first one!!!! Good luck on the remaining six.
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