Read through

The novel was done. It didn't have a name, and no one had read it, but I had a first draft of a novel on my hands.

When I say no one had read the book, I mean even I hadn't read it. Part of the NaNoWriMo challenge is to turn off your internal editor. I was not entirely successful as my fingers hovered over the keys too long before striking them.

But I did resist going back and messing with what was already down on paper. When I opened the Word file each morning, I would go back a couple of paragraphs to see where I left off, but no farther. Part of it was the time crunch and not having time to rewrite anything. Another was I was worried that I would read it and see how horrible it was and get discouraged.

On the advice of many, I intended to set the book aside for a while. Wait for at least a month to distance myself, maybe start reading it in the new year. But I didn't wait all that long. I was home for Christmas, and had some time on my hands. I reasoned that it had been almost two months since I wrote the first chapter, but it was just an excuse. I wanted to read the damn thing.

I went to Fed Ex/Kinkos and printed it out. Bought a shiny new binder and a fresh highlighting pen. I went to a coffee shop, bought a strong cup of coffee and dug in.

And then I stopped.

I started making corrections and pausing over paragraphs all over again. I wasn't working for me. I was still excited to read the story I had written, and the highlighter was messing it up. I wanted to read it once through without critiquing it (or at least taking notes). I found a way to format it for the Kindle, and read it there for the first time. No real notes. Some judgement.

Parts of it were painful, but there were certain points or turns of phrases that brought a smile to my face. It needed a lot of work, but I enjoyed reading it for the first time.

Now it was time to edit the thing .