Friday, June 03, 2005

Do you want to be a writer?

Basically, the last thing I needed to complete for my program was to submit my MFA Project to my committee. This (for me) is due tomorrow...or today...whichever way you think about it. For about the last 3 weeks I have been working on my project (a novel) for about 8-12 hours a day. (This is on top of my part-time job and the class I am taking.) What is interesting about this process (wait, I think I need to backtrack here and explain that I was completely being a procrastinator, and waiting to the last minute to write 4 new chapters, and revise the whole draft that I already had, which is why I've had to put 8-12 hours a day into my project), was because it was so intensive, I really feel like I know what's going on, what the motivations for my characters are, what my overall vision is. Before I kind of had ideas about these things, but it was hard for me to verbalize them.

So, today I have put in closer to 15 hours, and so yes, here at 4 am, I have finished the project for my deadline. (At least, I *think* I have finished--it's 4 am, so it's hard to think clearly about what I've been doing all day, and what I'm supposed to be doing for tomorrow. :)

What I find most exciting about this is, even though I anticipate doing at least one more intensive round of revision after I get feedback from my Committee, I know that my novel is getting closer to that state where I will soon have to find an agent, and *hopefully* start sending it to publishers for publication. I've been working on this project for 5 years now, so I am *really* excited about this prospect. The draft for my Committe is 280 pages long.

Oh, and for those of you who know about my novel already--yes, I know I've been calling it "Becoming Women" since the beginning, but I think I came up with a real title--or, at least, a working title, "Threads." We'll see what my Committee thinks.

By the way, if you ask me what my novel is about, I still won't be able to answer your question.