So last weekend I completed the first draft on my latest novel-length project.  It has been an interesting journey, though not a terribly long one. Actual writing started on August 10 and finished Nov 15. Not too shabby for 80,800 words and primarily working just 5 days a week.

What are my thoughts here as the end of the first draft?

One, I’m happy I was able to pull of 80,000 in first person. While I have written several novel all of them have been in various flavors of 3rd person. This was my first attempt tp do a novel in the tight confines of first person. When I started I was far from confident I’d reach the goal.

Second, this book is an SF/Noir and to me one of the essential elements of noir is cynicism. At their hearts in my opinion noirs area bout flawed characters making poor decisions. They are about the desires that turn people bad. the vast majority of my fiction is not cynical and it was a challenge maintaining the outlook a noir required, but I believe that I did it.

Third, I am pleasantly surprised my the accuracy of my predictions. I outlined the novel, because I am a plotter, and estimated a word count of 80,000 words. The first draft landed at 80,850, so I was nearly 99% accurate in my length prediction.

Fourth, I like the book. I had fun writing it, it hit me on an emotional level, it even, lightly, touches on a few deeper themes such as how much do you owe your culture and how much does it owe you? I have no idea if another person on the planet will like it, but I am happy with the result.

My nerves continue to run high as this will be the first book my agent has seen from me after I signed with the agency. My short story agent has seen a number of pieces and I think it starting to get a sense for how I like all sorts of different kinds of stories and setting. For my book agent this will be a very different experience from the Hornblower in space that he read and enjoyed. That makes me very nervous.