Writing, waiting, writing; A novel in the works...

So, I'm trying to write a novel.  Not just one, but many.  I have an incredible amount of ideas (all written in notes and story titles and short blurbs here and there) but, we all know, ideas can only be ideas; they are not a novel or a finished story.  They can only ever be ideas.

Quite a few years ago, I came across an opportunity to write a screenplay for a contest.  I talked to a close friend about it and we decided that we would tag team the writing and see what we came up with.  The kicker was it had to be done in less than a month.  So, our adventure began and we wrote a one hundred page screenplay in about three weeks.  It was called The Messengers: Hell Follows and the idea was sparked by a passage I had read in the Bible-- Revelations 11; The Two Witnesses.  The idea was to cross that story over into a genre that might work with the stylistic story that I had read from Revelations.  So, we made it a supernatural western.
We didn't win the contest but we did finish a full length screenplay and that felt amazing.

Since then, I've written four screenplays on spec but I always wanted to come back to that original source of pride for me-- the finished work.  Of course, it wasn't really finished.  We barely had time to do any other drafts and because of that, I know the story is full of holes.

About a year ago, I came back to the idea.  I thought to myself that I really enjoyed the writing process and maybe I should take a chance at writing a novel.  This is where my brain went full Tsunami with the ideas.  I can tell you, ideas is one area I have no trouble at all with.  Then, I calmed my thoughts and wondered what I needed to do to start on one idea.  I came back to The Messengers; the story was pretty much all already there and all i'd need to do is go through it and fill in the holes.  So, that's what I've been doing.  I'm working on a novel called The Messengers and have made some pretty good progress squeezing almost 60 pages worth of writing out of about 30 pages of screenplay.

Now, I just want to finish it and do one more draft to smooth things out, making sure it flows and makes sense to the reader (if there will be any).  I can feel it and I know once I finish one, I won't want to stop there and the next one will be a little easier and the one after that, even more easy.  I know they won't be easy, but hopefully, the more gets done, the easier the work will come.

Wish me luck.  The Messengers will come to a little town of 'Salem and they will bring truth and they will be justice.  Not for themselves but for the fearful and the lost, the broken and the weak.  They will speak for those who can't.

Thanks for listening.  I'm off to write.