How do you celebrate finishing a first draft?

I like to do it with cake….

Flora finished fanfare: from Vanessa’s Book of Awesome Things – Challenge from 30 at 30, number 18: “pie/cake in the face”

When I started the first draft: 4/13/15
When I finished the first draft: 8/8/15
Total days to completion: 117 days or 3 months, 26 days

What I did differently in writing this novel: after writing the first chapter and the summary I wrote a complete outline

The first chapter: I rewrote several times

Fun fact: This novel is based on the short story Magicas Quotient I wrote in May of 2014 and submitted to WOTF second quarter in 2015. I was inspired to write it into a middle grade fantasy novel after reading Sara Supernatural by the local author Tiffany Belcher.
Total number of words in Flora’s Last Chance for Magic draft one: 40,283

The last two sentences of the manuscript:

The aftermath of the celebration:

Check out the video from the event!

Thanks to Paul for taking video and cake to the face.