Their Eyes Were Full of Light- First Draft is Complete

 

Welcome to the first post on my novel, tentatively titled, Their Eyes Were Full of Light. 

For the past five years, I have been a stay-at-home mom to my son, which kept both of us busy. Because of Covid, he did not attend public pre-school in 2020. Instead (to my greatest delight) he stayed home with me for another year. I developed a curriculum and we played, and laughed, and learned together. But in August of 2021, my son started Kindergarten and left me with a lot of time for other projects. 

I started plotting Their Eyes Were Full of Light at the very end of August 2021, and once I had a fully formed plot outline, I was able to start writing chapter one by the middle of September 2021. Fully plotting each chapter before writing ended up working very well for this piece, and made it much easier to write than I anticipated. My first draft of the novel was completed by the end of October 2021. 

As of this posting, the novel is still in a very rough first draft state, but I printed out a few copies and have passed it around to my family. I'm getting some of their feedback now, and it's been such a fun experience talking about it with them. They have so much insight into what's working and what's not working for them. I've enjoyed hearing their predictions for what will happen next, their first impressions of the characters, and what they think about the pacing of the novel. 

This has so far been an immensely rewarding experience. Writing a full, complete novel has been one of my life's biggest dreams. When I finished the last word of the last sentence of the novel, I felt a huge sense of relief and accomplishment- I did it! I wrote a novel!

But, the feeling faded pretty quickly. 

Turns out, just like any other accomplishment in the world, it's truly the actual act of working that means anything. 

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Their Eyes Were Full of Light is a young adult fairy tale about a young woman who illegally harvests a magical root for an ancient, mystical creature at the top of a mountain—a crime punishable by death in the consuming fires. But one day, she trusts a stranger with the secret to her identity as a Gatherer for the Creature at the top of the Mountain, and finds herself exiled into a world of twirling princesses, castle walls, and servitude to a King she is not allegiant to—but to whom her love grows. So far from home, her faith is tested; but she remains connected to the creature of the mountain, and as his power works through her, she is not the only one who takes notice. Will her faith be enough to save her from the consuming fires?