Sometime in March (I don’t remember anymore) I finished The Step and the Walk, freaked out about how short it was (around 55,000 words) and then spent about two months trying to grow the novel into something bigger and better.

Two days ago I caught up with everything, read to the end, and decided the book was done. It’s complete at 61,381 words/220 pages. It’s not the same size as The Name and the Key, which is what I hoped for, but I literally can’t add anything more to this book without it becoming bloat that would probably end up getting cut anyway.

Writing an epistolary novel was hard. Harder than I expected it to be. I had to balance telling the story with action and dialogue in a reasonable manner (like, how much of it should Andresh share? How much would he remember, and what is important to him?) but also, in diaries, sometimes people just write their thoughts down and meander through them. This was a struggle because I have some entries where Andresh goes off thinking, but I couldn’t have it happening too much or too long because of the potential for audiences to get bored. I want introspection, but not rambling.

I feel like the book is complete, but I don’t know how I feel about the book yet. I’m letting it sit for a few days, and then I’ll reread it. I may have to add a little bit more to it even now…but as far as everything I planned to have happen, it has officially happened in the book. It might be a matter of going back and sprinkling in some foreshadowing, or working on transitions between journal entries, etc.

My book is actually due to my publisher next month, so I still have some time to edit and perfect it.

Nonetheless, I thought I’d share this milestone. Yay!