Yay, I'm finished! (Sort of)

     The other day I finished the first draft of my young adult dark fantasy novel, Caribou Canyon. That is totally a working title. I hate titles, but that's a whole other topic of conversation. Today I'm calling the genre dark fantasy, as opposed to paranormal fantasy, partially because I like the ring of "dark fantasy." That is also a conversation for another time. The point is that I finished the first draft of my second novel.
     Yay!
     Time to celebrate!
     Cartwheels and confetti and back flips! (metaphorically speaking)
     Yay!
     This is a really exciting moment for many reasons. First, when I started writing seriously, I had this fear that my first novel was a fluke. I was certain that I would never have other ideas worthy of filling enough pages to be a novel. I also didn't think I'd continue to have the motivation to write entire novels, but it seems as though I had nothing to fear.
     Yay!
     This is also very exciting because I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to execute my little baby nugget of an idea that pretty much went like this: there are some people in a town and there are some ghosts and people get killed. But somehow I managed it and I'm very excited. Did I mention my excitement?
     Not only didn't I finish draft one, but I've already got ideas on how to improve it for the next draft and I have an idea for yet another novel.
     I'm going to take a little bit of a break from writing so I can breathe. Blogging doesn't count. I'm still allowed to blog. And write short stories. And plan my next novel. Okay, so I need to work on learning to relax. Topic for another post.
     Yay! I'm finished! Yay!

I'm on a speeding train...

…And it's wonderful!
   Weeeee!
     Or maybe it's a helicopter, a rocket ship, or a roller coaster. Roller coasters are fun. I like roller coasters, so we'll go with that.
     I'm on a roller coaster, and it's wonderful. Weeee!
     I'm talking about my current drive for writing. I might've gotten hit in the head with a writing stick, or gotten possessed by a creativity demon. Whatever happened, I'm on a roll and it's wonderful.
     I didn't start writing regularly until I was 30, because I was sure there was no way I would have the motivation to finish a novel. Now that I've started, I can't stop. I think I'm making up for lost time. I have one "completed" novel, New Year's Revolution, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and I'm almost finished with my first draft of my second novel, Caribou Canyon (totally a working title. I hate thinking of titles). I'm also ready to start writing my third novel, which will most likely happen in November. When I finish the first draft of that I will either start the second draft of Caribou Canyon or edit/rewrite New Year's Revolution. See what I mean? The ideas are happening faster than I can write them. It's overwhelming and wonderful. And then there's all the blog post ideas and the short stories which I have to squish in between all that other stuff.
    I probably ought to take some sort of a mental break between my current novel and my next novel, but I don't really want to. If I do, it will only be a couple of days because taking a break from writing is like taking a break from chocolate or coffee. It's possible that I'm a little crazy, but I swear it's the good kind of crazy.
     The story I want to start in November has been floating around my head for two years now. I was putting it on hold so I could finish other things, but now it's demanding to be written, so I'm going to write it. The only problem is the main character still hasn't told me his name. It might be Evan, but I'm still not entirely sure it isn't Dylan or Conner, or something else entirely. If he doesn't tell me soon, I'm just going to name him Rumple purely out of spite.
     All right, I'm off to finish Caribou Canyon. I'll do my best to spread the creativity cooties.
     Happy reading and writing everyone!