Draft four of my young adult novel is finished! Weighing in at 242 pages with 62 chapters, it's my first completed novel. (My other manuscript is a tiny 62 pages. Of course, it had to be quite a bit smaller since it was written with 2nd - 4th grade children in mind.) Technically, I finished writing draft four two weeks ago. But anytime I feel like I've "finished" a work, I always allow it to sit for at least a week or two. Then, when I sit down to read it, I try to pretend I did not write the novel. I think of myself as someone who is reading it for the first time. My goal is to be able to catch problems with character or plot or timeline or pacing. It's too easy to miss those problems without looking at the novel with fresh eyes. My novel is done simmering. Tomorrow I re-read it, then will take next week to do any final changes before handing it off to my agent when I am in New York during the second week of May.
-AnnaShinoda
