My First (and only) Completed Novel

Confession: I'm terrifically ashamed of anything I wrote before 1998. I wonder if there's a ten year window of non-embarrassment going on?

Reading:

• "L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story," by Lauren Groff
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold" - Outline 80%
  

Revising:

• "The Revenant"
• "Cora and the Sea" - Third draft 50%

It will never see the light of day.

Oh, you can read about it, if you like. In fact, I'll post a link to a description I wrote of it. But you will never read the actually thing.

I'm talking about The Happy Wars Saga, which stands as my first, and as of now only, completed novel. It's about 88,000 words long, which isn't bad for a high schooler. It took more than three years to complete, features a cast of hundreds of characters, and plagiarizes from nearly every book I had read and television show I had seen up to that moment.

Looking back on it, I can see my progression as a writer during that time. It's composed of fifteen parts, termed "episodes" (plagiarized from Star Wars, of course). The first episode (heavily plagiarized from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is nonsensical in the extreme. The next two aren't much better. The next three plagiarize more from Star Trek. Only in the last four or five do I manage any real creativity, with the threat of deadly aliens from outside the galaxy uniting warring factions. (It's only fair to mention that many years later, the same concept was used in Star Wars novels in the form of the Vuuzhan Vong. It's only fair that they plagiarize me back.)

This is not my only attempted novel, just the only one that I ever completed a draft on. Before it was a book I wrote in middle school called Space and Beyond, which I came within a few pages of finishing. Next is Floorcraft, which started out as a short story and kind of blossomed from there. Out of eight parts, I've written five and a half. And let's not forget Dairhenien's Library, often begun but never written further than Chapter One.

And now, I've decided that Ferian Fetlock is a book, not a short story. So join the club, Ferian. I won't say wait in line, but be warned--I'm fickle when it comes to finishing novels. You may not fare better than the others.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3