THE END.
One year.
52 weeks, 52 chapters.
99,943 words.
And so, my Bold Literary Experiment, the serialised novel (which now has this title)….
… comes to an end.
A strange mixture of feelings washed over me as I wrote its last few words. It was a bittersweet moment; while I was pleased and proud that I’d got through to the end, managing to keep all of my 52 promises along the way, I was also sad to say goodbye to all those characters, all those situations, and all the fun of being able to play god – deciding who does what, and what happens to them all next.
Since then, I’ve had a few thoughts, which you can see right here, on the About The Serialised Novel page, if you scroll down to the third entry.
And just on that… I’m currently in the throes of editing one final, special video diary entry for this project. But this one’s going to be really rather different. You see, this one is going to be a video of
Me-when-I-was-half-way-through-writing-the-novel (on November 11th, 2019)
interviewing
Me-when-I’ve-finished-the-novel (on May 16th, 2020).
When I had this idea six months ago, I recorded myself asking a series of questions to my future self (that is, me-in-May-2020), and listening attentively to the answers…
And now that I have finished the novel, I’ve been able to turn the camera around and record my answers to all of those questions.
(One of which was “Has anything happened between when I am – November 2019 – and when you are – May 2020 – that’s had a big impact on the writing of the novel?” Oh, I dunno – global pandemic, anyone?)
Right now, I’m editing it all together – which is quite a daunting task – while trying to prevent my head from exploding in confusion and bewilderment. If you’d like to watch the finished product – that is, me interviewing myself from a distance of two metres… and six months! – I can let you know when it’s done, if you sign up to the mailing list at author@TheStephenHall.com.
And now, as I look back over the last year, I’m so glad that I set myself this challenge for my 50th year, so glad that I set up this particular framework to do it in, and so glad that I managed to see it all the way through. Thank you so much for all your support… and for reading this far.
Now I launch into the Great Big Edit, which reminds me that everything I’ve done so far is only Phase One. There’s still a lot of work to do on this before it’s a finished product up for sale on Amazon. But it’s a lot of work that I’m really looking forward to getting into! Again, if you’d like to keep up to date with all the latest developments as they happen, please do consider signing up to the mailing list at author@TheStephenHall.com.
Must dash now; editing (of the video variety and of the literary variety) beckons!
Cheers, and again – a thousand thanks,
Stephen.