A Promise to Myself, Kept

I'm very pleased with myself at having finally finished, this afternoon, the complete first draft of a novel I've been working on (along with several other books, including my scholarly book Magnetic Woman on the Czech surrealist Toyen, an anthology of Czech modernist writings on art and visual culture, and numerous shorter projects!) for a long time.

This novel and two others had been knocking around for awhile in a not-too-far-from-done state. As I have even more novels planned, and no longer have to focus most of my attention on Magnetic Woman and tenure/promotion, back in May I made a promise to myself that this summer I'd finish at least one novel. It feels pretty good to have done so.

Now, of course, a first draft is not usually a submittable finished work, but in this case I think it is pretty close to one. I'll have a few friends read it over and offer comments. If they find it pretty much ready to go, then it will join the other finished novel that is currently being considered by the readers for various novel contests and literary publishers.

I'd like to simply proceed to finish another novel now, but with August beginning tomorrow, I've got to turn my energies to the courses I'll be teaching in the coming school year.