Awakening Is Drafted!!

One of my goals this year was a big one. Around the start of the year, I had a few chapters written of my novel Awakening. And when I say written I mean handwritten, because that's how I always do my first drafts. So early on I made a goal for myself; to finish the story draft by year's end.

.......and I have done it.

25 chapters and an epilogue are finally written and the first draft is completed, and mere weeks before 2021 ended! You guys have no idea how happy and excited that makes me. Sure, I've completed story drafts before, but this is the first real draft that I have started and finished after lots of practice and after receiving some solid professional advice from some other writers and a publisher.

About half of my chapters are typed up in what I dub the second draft, and then I post them on a third-party site where other readers and/or writers critique them so I can finish up a third draft before publishing them officially on Wattpad. And I could not be more excited to get them more edited and finalized for everyone to read!

I have talked about Awakening in the past but have not in a while (not to mention that my writing posts generally don't get a lot of attention), so for those of you that do not know this story is the first in a trilogy that would be considered a supernatural tale set in the modern world. But I promise it's nothing cringe; the protagonist is honestly one of my favorites of most of my characters as he is very friendly, empathic, and compassionate towards others. But there's unnatural goings on in his small town lately with him being the only one able to figure things out while simultaneously keeping his friends and mother unaware.

I have put a lot of thought into the characters, the plot, relationships, dialogue, action, and even the chapter titles, some of which have more than one meaning.

• 1. Chill
• 2. Burn
• 3. Blaze
• 4. Box
• 5. Faint
• 6. Shadow
• 7. Sermon
• 8. Animosity
• 9. Notes
• 10. Instinct
• 11. Appearance
• 12. Emergence
• 13. Voice
• 14. Disquiet
• 15. Cause
• 16. Panic
• 17. Rush
• 18. Mother
• 19. Demand
• 20. Attack
• 21. Immunity
• 22. Power
• 23. Result
• 24. Puzzle
• 25. Recovery

Please do consider reading my story, even if you might not have criticisms or comments! I have received lots of praise from various test audiences including comments that the dialogue feels natural, the characterizations seem solid and even relatable, the mystery keeps people intrigued, and the general structure doesn't feel too forced or too slow.

Writing the first draft means I really get to think about what I am drafting since I write much slower than I type, not to mention I eventually get a recent draft to other writers/test audiences before I publish it for everyone to see, so I make sure to put a lot of thought and work into my chapters. If anyone's interested, follow the link to Wattpad here, because now that my story is completely drafted I hope to get more chapters up soon so the entire novel can be available for people to read!