Debut Novel Manuscript Finished!
Hello fellow readers! I have been MIA on my blog since February. I apologize to those who perhaps thought I was done with writing. Absolutely NOT! I will never quit writing! But if you read my last post, you will have known that I have been working on my debut novel. I am happy to say that I finished the manuscript! This is very exciting and a huge accomplishment. It also feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This was a big goal I had in 2026. To finish this story and begin the process of trying to get this published. Originally, I was aiming to finish around May or June, but for some reason, my writing speed and how I was piecing storyboard ideas and scenes together were taking longer than I anticipated. I am also happy to say that this work was done 100% by human hands. Human Made Certified... I say that as a way to start making it a thing for all my writing and for the reader to know that my writing is not Ai made. Grammarly can be considered Ai as it uses Ai to flag grammar, but that is the only tool used, as it does not write the whole story for you, and even then Grammarly does not flag every grammar problem correctly. I will need to hire a good editor if I decide to self-publish.
The manuscript is 76,792 words. That is industry standard for a debut author. If you go online and check how many words most literary agents and publishers are willing to work with for debut authors, you will see that it is around 60k to 100k words. With more editing and feedback from some beta readers, I am sure that number will shift.
And in that last sentence, yes! I do have some beta readers right now who are currently going through the manuscript. I will be reaching out to them in three to four weeks' time to give them enough time to go over the manuscript. I look forward to hearing their feedback and to see if what I have written is marketable and worthwhile for readers to engage with.
The premise of the story is that a group of outlaws attack and burn down a town during the day, leading to a massacre. One lone survivor escapes, and as the day ends and the sun settles, there is a shift in the appearance of the outlaws. The lone survivor gets a small glimpse of these outlaws, who turn out to be undead riding on top of undead horses as well.
She can't believe her eyes; she escapes to the next town over, where she meets a cowboy willing to hunt down said undead outlaws, but he wants to do it alone since he works best alone. She does not like that and disobeys him, and follows him without his knowledge. Where, eventually, some events lead to the cowboy encountering another gunslinger who is also tied up with the undead gang. All three protagonists then come together to hunt down these outlaws and follow them to an abandoned ghost town where they have their final shootout.
Obviously there is more nuance to the story, but that is the main plot of it. I hope it is interesting to you, and I will begin to be more active back on my blog as we approach October and I begin working on editing the current manuscript, writing a spooky short story for Halloween, and begin my journey into some script writing, as I want to go back to some film festivals next year as I did with HorrorOrigins last year (which this year I am not going since I was tied up in finishing my manuscript and did not write other things). I really do appreciate you, reader. And look forward to more updates in the future!
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