The First Draft of "Pumpkins" is complete!

I feel SO good to have finally reached this stage. I first started writing this YA horror novel about 2.5 years ago. While teaching screenwriting for a week at a film school in Brisbane, I went to a writers' accountability circle on Saturday morning and spent two hours pounding out a rough outline for the book, the premise of which had been floating around in my head for a year or so. Shortly after that, I wrote the first chapter, eventually returning to it from time to time and tweaking it but never quite feeling ready to write the rest of the book.

That changed in November 2020 when I inched forward on the manuscript, writing a second chapter. Then, with about 5,000 words written, I decided to devote an hour or two every morning during Christmas break to working on the book. I was able to sustain that for about 12 days, emerging from the holidays with just over 17,000 words. From there the manuscript progressed in fits and starts as I worked out various story problems until I had a series of breakthroughs that finally enabled me to tunnel all the way through to the other side of the mountain.

Now I have is on my computer and backed up on Google and Apple's cloud systems ready for editing. So far, the manuscript sits at 57,599 words. It's hard to say if the word count will go up or down from here as I do revisions, but I'm willing to bet it will come out closer to 58,000 rather than 57,000 words, not that I care too much about that right now.

For the moment, I'm just so excited to have the first book in a new series  (Uncanny Icons) so close to the finish line. Meanwhile, I already have most of the plot figured out for book 2 in the series, Brooms, which involves witches and curling. I plan to get on that right after I write book 6 in the Milligan Creek Series, Quiet on Set! Exciting times. I think I'll bask in elation for a bit and then get right back to work.