Manuscript!

First conceived in 1993, a science fiction story I was writing began to gather momentum as I sketched out a basic plotline in January 1994. By February 1994, I was writing the story and inserting elements from previous years' ideas. It was the second semester of my Freshman year of high school, and the urge to be creative was also bringing my grades up.

The story lost momentum in June 1994, though, and writing stopped. And then the manuscript became less of a priority. I devoted my life to Christ that summer. As classes began in the fall, I began to produce "idea books," my 9 inch by 4 inch college-ruled notebooks. Each idea book covered a semester of time and contained sketches, story segments, character breakdowns, and other notes. By the end of my Sophomore year of high school, I had 2 idea books completely filled.

Throughout my Junior year of high school, I continued to use my idea books and filled another pair of them with story components. I worked with a fellow classmate to generate a "crossover" story which included both his characters and mine. Still, the urge to finish the original story demanded attention. I purchased an 8 inch by 11 inch notebook and began writing again. This time, it was an affort to collate my original 1994 draft with segments of story from the idea books. But by the summer after my Junior year of high school, that stopped also.

I graduated high school in 1997. I had six idea books from my years in high school. By the end of summer, I had typed about five chapters of the story and was working on Chapter 6. Thinking somewhat critically of idea books, I decided to determine if they were a crutch that inhibited my writing, or whether they were a useful tool. By the end of Freshman year at Ohio State, I realized that idea books were a worthwhile tool--I kept on developing ideas whether I wrote them down or not.

By August 2001, I had 6 idea books from my years in college. I also had a finished manuscript in my folders on disk and on the hard drive. But the holes in the plot, in the characters, and the rest of the information suggested that it needed a revision. By the middle of March 2002, the idea behind the story received a major overhaul. Characters, concepts, even the appearance of key places were considered "open grounds" for revision. The world of the story grew and changed.

By August 2002, I was writing story segments during my lunch break, transmitting them home by e-mail messages. By February 2003, I was producing idea book story segments worthy of inclusion in the new story, and I had an idea for the story's conclusion. By July 2003, on the pages of my next idea books, I had nailed down key plot events in story segments. 2004 saw continuation of the story in typed form, and 2005 saw the finish of a major event. After a computer crash, my electronic copy of the story was off-limits for six months in the first half of 2006. I persisted, having prepared by taking notes and keeping a backup copy. I hand wrote chapters beginning in March, and by May, I had my final handwritten page. The story itself was over, but the "manuscript" was in two places.

To remedy this, in the summer of 2006, I began typing the preliminary chapters to tie down the loose ends of the manuscript's beginning. By December 2006, I was beginning to revise the manuscript for continuity. By January of 2007, I had revised my way to the very end of all my electronic manuscript. This February, I pulled out my handwritten final chapters. This past week, I pulled some late-nighters doing typing to get the story done.

I finished the manuscript early on Saturday morning.

And now, the fun's just begun. Something has to be done with a completed manuscript, so the road to publication begins now.