Achievement unlocked: today I finished the first draft of my (as yet untitled) novel, weighing in at just over 260 pages (65,000 words).

It’s a good feeling, but the work is far from done. As mentioned, I’ll let it sit for a month or so to distance myself from the text, then it’ll be time to dive into editing.

In the meantime I’m still planning to write several short stories and outline my next novel and try to figure out ways to speed up this novel-writing process without sacrificing quality. Fall semester starts soon and will inevitably slow all of this down, but hopefully not to a halt.