Saturday, April 11, 2015

First Draft is Done!


Well, I finally finished the first draft of my WWII historical fiction novel! I was like a crazy person by the end, because I was so close and I kept getting all these interruptions and I just had to finish already!!! Man, that last stretch is brutal sometimes.

I started my book in August of 2014, and considering I'm a homeschooling mom with church duties, book group, writer's group, and other stuff - it's amazing that I got it done in 9 months! I feel incredibly grateful and humbled, because I know it came at the sacrifice of other things in my life. My family is so wonderful and supportive! And my awesome cheerleader and fellow writer besty, Mairi, really helped see me through with all her enthusiasm, encouragement, and feedback.

I wish I could say more about the book itself, but I feel it's truly a unique story and want to wait until I have it published to talk about it. What I can say is that it's set in a fictional town in Indiana, my beautiful home state. I've always wanted to set a book in Indiana, so this makes me really happy! Indiana had a great role in WWII! One of the most fascinating things I discovered in my research is that recently some Nazi airplanes were discovered buried at Freeman Airfield near Seymour, IN. What an amazing find, and it makes you wonder what Nazi planes were doing all the way out in Indiana! You can read the article about it here.

There is still a lot of research to continue doing as I smooth out this first draft before sending it to my awesome beta readers. And then I can launch into the 2nd draft. Hopefully, I'll only need to have a 2nd draft and not a 3rd or 4th! :-p

Wish me luck!