OMG, y'all! I finally finished the very first, very rough draft for my novel. I have the perfectionist problem, where I can't move on until I've made a scene perfect. This was getting me nowhere because I was constantly going back to fix or change something. So I basically said screw it and just wrote. No going back, no changing anything. This is a really crappy draft, but it's a complete draft.
To celebrate, I thought I'd share a bit about the book with you!
1. I started this book by telling the story of one girl (my original title was even Story of a Girl, how original) but it has morphed into the stories of four girls, all living drastically different lives in one small southern Appalachian town.
2. My current title is just as simple as the first, but encompasses the one thing the girls all have in common: American Girls.
3. This is definitely YA fiction, but I really don't know how else to describe it. It's contemporary with a bit of alternate reality thrown in...maybe?
I printed a copy off at my local library today because I prefer to make notes on a physical copy instead of the file on my laptop. And instead of going through it chapter by chapter, I'm revising it by character so I don't accidentally confuse my narrators' voices.
Since I'm starting with the character I've had the hardest time writing, here are some facts about Leah!
1. Leah is the exact middle of seven children and is 14 at the start of the novel.
2. Leah's father is youth pastor at her church and principal of the private Christian school her parents started before she was born.
3. While Leah may get lost in the mix of her large family, at school she stands out as a perfect student and model Christian.
The book is broken down into four parts, one for each year of high school, which a chapter for each narrator. I'm giving myself until the end of March to revise and edit Leah's first two chapters so I can work on the last two before family comes to visit for Easter!
My goal is to get everything revised by my birthday in early June so I can send it out to some readers. Right now, I have two readers with one more as a possibility (plus my mom who I send everything to because she always loves it and that makes me feel good). If anyone has suggestions on how to recruit readers I can trust, please let me know!
As always, don't forget to follow me over on Twitter!
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