2200 words today. I officially finished Spirit Chaser (The Good Necromancer Book 3). I have 6 more days of Beast Mode left, but we’re pretty much at the end of the road here.
I liked where I ended up with Spirit Chaser. This was a fun and interesting novel that took me places I didn’t expect. I also got to practice some skills I’ve been wanting to practice for a while.
I wrote this novel with a pseudo structure. I followed the Lester Dent Method. I’ve been studying the old pulp writers and thought it would be a fun test to see for myself how they wrote. The result was a 19-day novel, which is pretty good—not my fastest, but not my slowest. I still think I’m too slow. I’d like to see my novels get down to 7-14 days, but that’s a topic for another post.
I’m by most accounts what people would call a fast writer, but the old pulp writers (and many working professional writers today) would write me under a table. I don’t compare myself to them, but I want to know what that kind of speed is like.
I also used this novel as an opportunity to practice transcription via dictation. 80% of it was spoken using this method. Basically, I spoke the story into a voice recording app on my phone, put that into Dragon and used the app’s transcription feature. Very, very accurate, and a very, very different way of telling a story. It’s a sometimes uncomfortable way to tell a story, but that’s precisely why I used this novel as a way to practice this method. I racked up very high word counts with a very high dictation accuracy.
That’s why I believe you should treat novels as practice sessions like Dean Wesley Smith often advocates. You can use them as testing grounds for things that you try in future books.
BEAST MODE UPDATE
Here’s where I’m going to land on Beast Mode…
9 books in 90 days. When I’m done, here’s what I’ll have created since July 1st:
- 9 books (3 novels, 6 nonfiction books), which will be around 250,000 words all said and done.
- A Writing App Database designed and developed from scratch
- A 90-minute free video course on dictation
- A 90-minute free video course on Microsoft Word macros and editing
- 1 article for an upcoming issue of Writer’s Digest (which was accepted and will be appearing in Jan/Feb 2022)
- 2 podcast interviews
- 5 speaking engagements (Writer’s Digest, ALLi SelfPub Con, Inkers Con, and Jessica Brody’s Writing Mastery Academy)
I did all of this while somehow also squeezing in two family vacations.
Did I manage to write every single day of Beast Mode? No. In fact, that’s why I pushed the challenge back 2 weeks because I lost two weeks prepping for my speaking engagements. It all worked out in the end though.
I just love Beast Mode.
Now I’m off to do a final loop of Spirit Chaser. I’ll have it off to my editor by bedtime tomorrow. Then, I’m not skipping any time because I need to finish Indie Author Confidential Vol. 7, which I should also be able to finish before the challenge ends on Oct. 15.
WANT TO WIN NANOWRIMO THIS YEAR?
Check out this bundle of 16 books (including one of my own) to help you CRUSH NaNo this year: https://storybundle.com/nano
PROGRESS SO FAR:
Spirit Chaser (The Good Necromancer Book 3): 33,000 words.
Editing Book: 11,300 words. In post-production.
Dictation Book: 12,500 words. With cover designer.
Author’s Guide to Strategy: 16,000 words. Published.
The Self-Publishing Advice Compendium: (Pre-Beast Mode book): 98,000 words. Published.
How to Write a Novel without an Outline: 43,100 words. With my cover designer.
Cold Hard Magic: 50,200 words. Published.
Indie Author Confidential Vol. 7: 14,900 words.
Rat City (Chicago Rat Shifter Book 2): 76,000 words. Published.
Writing App Book: 16,500 words. With my cover designer/
Writing App Tool: 100% complete
Indie Author Confidential Vol. 6: Published.
