It’s a fictional coming of age story, told in a memoir style. I ‘ve done about 12K words in the last few days, and wrote 6900 words on it today, so I could finish it before Anne and I go on a little vacation tomorrow. I’m going to let it sit and give myself some distance from it, so I can be clear-eyed and objective when I start the rewriting process next week.
i just finished the first draft of my first novel
Woohoo! Very exciting.
Oh,I know it will be wonderful! You signed a book of yours for me back in 2005 that I cherish to this day. Everything you write is great, and I’m looking forward to your novel. Thank you, Wil, for keeping me inspired for so many years. Love and hugs. 🐾
Congratulations to you, sir! I hope I get a chance to read it in the near future!
waves pompoms and cheers YOU GO WIL YOU GO! FIRST DRAFT KICKED IN THE ASS WOOOOOOOO!
Congratulations! Enjoy the break and come back all bright-eyed!
Congratulations!!
Fantastic news! Congratulations!
I was trying to figure out why I hadn’t seen this on Twitter, and realized that you had blocked me (@cjoshuav). Is there any chance I was swept up in your auto-block-list script? If so, I’d love to be reinstated. I miss your tweets.
Kudos on finishing the first draft! That’s a huge milestone. Hopefully it feels great to have a new major accomplishment like this under your belt. I look forward to seeing it. Enjoy your vacation.
I was told long ago at a seminar for writing that the most important thing is finishing the first draft! You’ve done it!!! I can’t wait to read your book! I’m a big fan and love your work!!!
Enjoy your vacation! You’ve more than earned it!
Yes! I look forward to reading it when it finishes it’s travel through publication-purgatory. What’s the best way (i.e. what puts the most money in your pocket) to buy one of your books?
Congrats Will, a coming of age story by you sounds like something i would really want to read. Take care!
This is now a thing that wasn’t there before. good work!
Yay! Getting that much accomplished is wonderful!
Can’t wait to read it!! Congratulations, that’s amazing when the words flow like that!
Congrats, Wil. I’ll buy it even if you self-publish as I know I enjoy your style. Best of luck with the rest of the process.
Congrats Wil! I look forward to reading it.
Can’t wait to read it! Are you going to do the narration for the audio version? Ready Player One was great! (both the novel and your reading)
Yep.
Sweet! I really liked your narration of Ready Player One.
I approve of this.
Boo. And also Ya.
I’ve been wanting to see what you could do in long-form fiction for the last, oh, 16 years give or take, so I am SUPER excited to see this. Congratulations!
Thought: Put it on Kickstarter and self-publish. That’ll pay for the entire first print run. Let Amazon do FBA for the hard copies, and of Souter the Kindle version.
Backers get it a week (month?) before it hits mainstream.
No money out of pocket up front, low to no risk, everyone loves Will.
WAHOO! What a great feeling. And your smart to walk away and let it breath. I’ve been working on a re-write for awhile now. Best of luck.
Just wanted to say: the way that you continually challenge yourself, even in the fields where you are so accomplished (WoW guild )… well it is a real inspiration. It’s always so exciting to see this from someone whom* I respect for their artistic accomplishments, but even moreso for their approach to creating art. Thanks and grats.
*save vs grammar?
pesky HTML-tag-shaped brackets.. the WoW guild I suggested is (successful writers).
I’m already excited to read it, but more importantly what I wanted to say is that I can’t figure out how to post a comment on radiofreeburrito.com, to tell you that I’m listening to your podcast. Do I have to register on wordpress or something?
30k is barely a novella. What you have, kind sir, is a short story.
Love your work on Big Bang, though.
I’m curious: what were you hoping to achieve, here?
What was I hoping to achieve. Well, first I must confess I should have added, “but still an amazing accomplishment.” Apologies.
To answer your question, though, I didn’t want you, or anyone else confused about what a “novel” is or isn’t. While 20K is indeed a great accomplishment (far more than most people will do in their in lifetimes), writing 70k-100k and up is some serious stuff. Claiming to have written a novel at 20k, well…it’s like claiming to be a tv star when you just happened to be in the background on the Today show.
There’s a big “effort” difference.
BUT! Keep writing on that 20k, and eventually you CAN claim that novel draft. 😉
Noah, with respect, your analogy is flawed. Novel length, like so much else in writing/publishing, is subjective. In general, you could call a work of 20-45K a novella, and works longer than 45K novels. But the label you slap on it doesn’t change the quality. Writing a complete draft of 20K is just as impressive as writing a work of 100K.
Ooh I beg to differ. Have you ever written 100k words? What’s the name of your book? Writing 20k isa God accomplishment, but 100k takes, at the very least, weeks. 20k can be completed in days, as his 6900 words in one day supports. That’s an amazing accomplishment…6900 words in one day. Not easy.
Noah, thanks for asking. I have eleven full-length novels traditionally published as Jennifer AlLee, and two novellas written as J.L. Farey. Because I’ve seen a lot of talented writers struggle to break through the traditional system, I started a small press of my own (Journey Fiction) two years ago. To answer your other question, Nope, I’ve never written a 100K novel, not because I can’t, but because I haven’t told a story that needed to be that length. My longest so far is about 80K. When people ask me how many words a novel should be, my answer is, “as many words as it needs to be.” Also, Wil never said how long his novel is. He gave two word counts, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t start with more. I have no idea how long his novel is, but he’s done the part most aspiring novelists never do: he finished the first draft. Huzzah!
Well, then, let’s just call a short story an Epic novel (cuz it doesn’t matter how long it is) and be done with it. Geesh. You guys really take things out of proportion. A STORY is as long as it needs to be. You believe what you want, you will anyway, even if the truth is staring you in the face. “But that’s not what I want it to be…” Oh, defender of Wil Wheaton.
If you look up the difference between a novel and a novella, you won’t find “Well, it’s all in how you decide to look at it. You can call it whatever you want. 20k, 100k, there’s no difference.”
Now…I will agree with you, and I did say this already, that what he DID accomplish is great, because 85% of America WANTS to write a book, but won’t…and Wil, no matter how long it is, if he decides to publish it, will have written a book. Even if it’s not technically a novel. So, kudos to the guy for that.
Now let Wil do his own defending. I think he’s more than capable.
Please, I’m not defending Wil. I’m responding to your opinions, which you’re entitled to, with my opinions, which I’m entitled to. Not anything to get twisted panties over LOL
Ha! No Twisted Panties here.
Nor here. All’s well 😀
This is a great example of a “Well, actually”, but otherwise, I give it a D in terms of commenting, as it adds nothing positive to the conversation.
Well, if all Wil wanted was comments on how great he is, then I take it all back.
However, I think he gets enough idol worship, and he’s probably got a strong enough self esteem, that he can take one comment with information on the reality of his achievement, as good as it is.
Noah, I’m sorry that you think being congratulatory is “idol worship” and that pedantry and backhanded compliments is “realistic.” Going back to Wil asking you what you hope to achieve: is it important to you that Wil not feel as proud of what he’s done as he’s showing here? By insisting that this distinction you’re making is important, are you trying to convince other commenters to not be so excited for Wil? To not congratulate him as much as they have? Besides yourself, who do you think cares about your distinction and why is this distinction so important to you? Especially considering Wil has good friends who are Real Life Novelists who would almost certainly tell him “Yo, you didn’t technically write a novel, but hey, good for you” if they thought it was important (or true).
I can’t speak for other people in the comments here, but the reason I choose to comment with nothing but enthusiastic congratulations is because I figure Wil has plenty of people in his life who will give him negative or “realistic” feedback, who will help him edit his work, who will help him shape his story into the form he most wants it to be, and he doesn’t need random blog commenters to fill that roll. Why walk into someone’s house uninvited and say something snide just because you can?
Also, I’ve seen the whole Crocodile Dundee “that’s not novel length, THIS is novel length” argument far too many times, and ultimately the only people who care are awards committees putting works into different categories and pedants who desperately want to show everyone how RIGHT they are. Real life isn’t a Lit class and the grades you give other people don’t go into their permanent file.
If you say so.
Mr Wheaton, don’t stop. Keep going.
Besides, 6900 words in one day? Wow. Respect.
You can whip out a full length novel easily. Good luck.
The screen shot I see, at the top of this very blog entry, says over 61,000 words, so I don’t know where you’re getting your numbers from.
Easy. I don’t have a screen shot on my phone. So, if that’s the case, I withdraw my comment completely and will delete it, if I can find it
Great! I can’t wait to read your book! I also plan to write a book someday!
Someday could be this November!! 🙂 https://nanowrimo.org/
Excellent! A story done is a story done, word count aside. Must feel like the stopping-hitting-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-hammer thing. Congrats. I have the Envy.
I have to say that I’m loving the stuff you write – keep writing!