Deadline August 2024

I want to share a little story. My first novel took about four years to write, from concept to finish. 

Back in November 2023, while I attended my hometown comic convention, I found myself casually admitting to a voice actor that I was writing a story inspired by a fellow voice actor’s performance.

“He’s a friend of mine. I’m going to tell him.”

It was a motivating response. I decided I’d better get serious if people knew about it.

Fast forward a few months. I thought I might possibly, maybe, have a readable novel by spring. I looked up the voice actor’s scheduled appearances and there was one at the end of August 2024 – on my birthday!

But, in the manner of making plans and amusing the universe, I did not have my novel in shape by the end of spring. Nor through the summer.

At the beginning of August 2024, with still about half the novel to revise, I began frantically shoveling words into the document. I crammed in writing sessions every moment I could.

(I do not recommend doing this! I do not condone ignoring your physical and mental health for a self-imposed deadline.)

Imagine: It’s the last week of August. The event is Friday. I’m still writing and rewriting scenes every moment on Monday before the event. I’m close but not done. Midnight comes and I have to stop because I’m scheduled to work the next day.

I take a few hours to sleep and rise early, diving right back into the manuscript.
Then, I felt it. 8AM on a Tuesday. I had finished my novel.

But I couldn’t pause to celebrate, as I had to go to work!

The last Friday in August 2024, I waited in line to inform a voice actor that his performance inspired a novel that was about to go to beta readers that weekend.

I think I held it together for a solid 45 seconds before the audacity of my situation overwhelmed me and I lost the ability to speak coherently. I had presented an untried manuscript to someone who had not asked for it.

(I refer you to the mismanagement of my own mental health as explanation that the writer failed in words.)

It’s not like I expected him to provide feedback or promote my work. In fact, the copy I left with him doesn’t have my name anywhere in it.
Whatever he thinks of it doesn’t diminish that I completed a novel.