A Calm, Organized, Real Post (No, I'm Serious)

Dear readers,

That last post was indeed a jumbled mess. I read back through it and I don't think my readers believed, after reading it, that I truly had just written 50,000 words of a novel. Or, at least, that it was organized and readable. As to the first, I may assure you, I did write 50,000 words (though I feel I must clarify--I had written some before November, so I only made it to about 43-44,000 in November itself). As to the latter, I may only assure you that a great deal of it was written late at night, and you may take from that what you will. Parts of it, I daresay, are not as clear as they should be.

Now, I shall attempt to write a clear, organized, "real" post (and succeed, of course. I've done so before, haven't I?...Haven't I?)  

Of course you have!
(I declare, this is probably my favourite reaction image of all, in case you haven't noticed already.)

First, I'll give you a little background to my novel. 

I began the original draft of this novel when I was eleven years old. As I recalled when telling the background to another dear friend, it actually began as telling a story aloud to my younger siblings in the car. I believe they even helped a great deal in forming the plot. 

My story began with a man and a woman who lived happily except for the fact that they had no children. Such begins a few tales, and such began mine. It proceeded with the wife falling ill, and requiring radishes, which could only be found in the garden of a Witch (in my first draft, Witch was always capitalised). The Witch, of course, caught the man stealing it, but then did something strange. She gave the man a barley seed, saying it would become a flower when planted, which his wife was to kiss and there would be a little girl, whom she would proceed to take away.

That doesn't make a great deal of sense, Rae's 11-year-old self.

I tell you all this because I completely and entirely changed the beginning in my second draft, which is the novel I just finished. 

But, as you probably guessed, that beginning was a combination of Rapunzel and Thumbelina, and it was the beginning of a novel idea which I have not given up on.

I continued writing that first draft over the last several years. The last I wrote of it was a little over a year ago, and I never actually finished it. I was almost to the end, I had about 43-44,000 words, but when I came around to the idea of writing again this year, there was so much I wanted to change that I wasn't sure it was worth writing an ending to the first draft when it was likely to change.

I began to rewrite my novel, with a completely different beginning.

Good.

And rewriting was something my poor book needed dreadfully. I referred back to my first version several times, and oh, my eyes hurt and my head ached. I believe I wrote a great deal of it around ages 13 and 14, which were not my best times in my writing experience.

And that, dear readers, is all I shall tell you of its content. Perhaps in time snippets shall be shared. Perhaps.

Anyway, now it's written, though I would not call it finished. It needs a great deal more work. 

I'm quite happy that I had the opportunity to do NaNoWriMo this year! It was just the thing to get my book on its way to completion.

There, see, I managed to keep it calm and organized, didn't? I'm amazed at myself, truly. 

Mr. Collins is *~taken aback~*

(At first when I wrote this, I forgot to put pictures in, and it didn't seem like a real post. Mr. Collins helped out quite a bit, no? :)

Also! Who wants to discuss Little Women with me in the comments? I'm rereading it for the first time in several years, and I'm a little ways into part 2. For a long time, after reading it 3-4 times when I was younger, I had a bitter grudge against dear Louisa May Alcott for not putting Jo and Laurie together and also for putting Laurie with Amy. When preparing to read it again, I realized perhaps now, being older, I'd change my mind. Now, I haven't gotten to the part where Laurie proposes yet, only to the part where Jo just went to New York, but I'm already excessively upset at the injustice between Amy and Jo and I already kinda adore the Jo and Laurie ship. I don't believe I'll change my mind. Anyway...discussion on the subject is welcome. Also ranting about how unfair it is that Amy got so much more than Jo when let's be honest, we all like Jo better (well, no offense to Amy admirers of course if you're out there).

Hope you all have a lovely week and a lovely Christmas season!