Friday, I did something I’ve only done three other times in my life — completed the first draft of a novel.

Two weeks ago, my critique partners gathered for an emergency plotting party, as I had written myself into a corner and couldn’t find the solution. (Not the first time I’ve done that, but hopefully it was the last, knock wood.) Even though we figured out how to resolve the external plot and internal conflict, the end — the actual last half page — played out in a way that surprised me when I wrote it. I like it. It’s nice when the characters take over like that.

Now I have one week to go through the manuscript, beginning to end, and make it a cohesive, integrated storyline where all the elements flow together. I also need to take away the schizophrenic qualities some of the characters took on. Just like living, breathing people, the more time you spend in the company of your characters, the better you get to know them. Aspects of their personality that I planned from the beginning played out differently once they showed up on the page, and changed as the story progressed.

There’s one theory of writing that says the ideal number of drafts is four. In the first draft, you get it all down, just tell the story, beginning to end. In the second, you add in all the things you should have put in the first time. In the third, you take out all the stuff that really doesn’t belong or is repetitive. And the fourth is to smooth it out, make it read like that’s the way you wrote it the first time.

I write such a polished first draft **cough** that I can do drafts #2 through #4 in one week. At least, that’s the way it’s going to be, since my contract says I must send the manuscript to my editor at the end of this week. (We all know that creative endeavors are never finished, they are merely abandoned — or sent in because the deadline has arrived.)

Yesterday, I took a break from four weeks of 14-hour workdays to celebrate the completion of the first draft, and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith and then Pride and Prejudice on DVD, as well as make a third trip to the theater to see The Libertine. Forget playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon — it’s six degrees of Johnny Depp. For three actors who appeared in Libertine, their next project was Pride and Prejudice. Early in their careers, Brad Pitt and Vince Vaughn each appeared on an episode of 21 Jump Street. (We’re not going to discuss the other way Brad and Vince are connected. Nope.)

Break’s over. Back to revisions…