5639 words today. KA-POW! Put some salt on this steak, cuz it’s sizzlin’!!!!
All-around killer day today, and my word count was about 40 or so words higher than yesterday, so I managed to beat my average.
Between yesterday and today, I did 11,000 words. Funny how novels have their own speeds depending on where you are in the novel.
I started with an early writing session, which netted me about 700 words before work. I took my entire lunch to write more words, and I had a productive evening as well. It helped that the story is in a pretty good spot and I didn’t have to think too hard about what was next.
I also tried a new writing technique in today’s writing session where I did a very interesting POV switch that is a little unusual. It was fun to test out, and we’ll see if people respond to it, but that helped pour gasoline on the writing sessions today.
The manuscript is now sitting at approximately 51,700 words which means I will arrive at the milestone I needed of 52,000 words tomorrow, so I’ll open up voting in tomorrow’s blog post for my next book.
The novel will probably be somewhere around 60,000 words, so at 52,000 I’m less than 8,000 words (give or take a couple thousand) away from finishing the book. One thing I noticed about my Rat Shifter series is that the lead-ups to the final battles take a while, but when they get going, they go fast. The first book was very similar to this one in that regard.
Naturally, I want as many high word count days as possible through the end of this week because it won’t be long.
I still don’t see the “glimmer” of the ending yet, but it’s going to be any chapter now.
FROM HERE ON OUT
Since I’m very close to the glimmer, I need to change my writing practice.
When I get to the final chapter and write “The End”, I want it to truly be the end. I prefer to pre-load all my self-revision ahead of that so that it’s truly a one-draft novel. Here’s how I’ll be accomplishing that:
* Starting tomorrow, I’ll be imposing a simple quota, something I don’t do very often. My goal is to write AT LEAST 2000 words per day. That will get me to 60,000 (or the end, whichever is sooner) sometime around Saturday, probably before the Power Hour.
* Looping will switch to every 1000 words now instead of 500. This will let me dial up the temperature on my word counts.
*Every 1000 words (or every other looping session), I will review a chapter. For example, once I write 1000 words, I’ll loop that 1000 words, and then review Chapters 1-2. I’ll edit those chapters and fix any issues that may be inconsistent with what I wrote later in the book. Once I write another 1000 words (which puts me at 2000 words, I.e. my quota for the day), I’ll loop and then review Chapters 3-4. Reviewing 4 chapters per day for the rest of this week will put me somewhere around Chapter 20. The book is currently 30 chapters and will probably somewhere near 40.
*Once I know the ending for sure, I’ll stop looping so I can maximize my word counts in each writing session. That could be tomorrow, or it could be some other time during the week. However, I’ll continue reviewing chapters at a good clip, hopefully somewhere between 4-5 per day.
*Once I get to the final chapter, I’ll write the final sentence, thus concluding the novel, but I won’t write “The End” just yet.
*I’ll then switch to reviewing each chapter sequentially until I arrive at the end, which goes very fast once I’m past the middle.
*Once I arrive at the end of reviewing each chapter, I’ll then write “The End.”
*Next, I’ll run the book through my editing engine. That will take one day.
*Finally, I’ll review the book again very quickly, but this time in a different order. At this point, I’m just reading it and updating my outline as well as fixing anything that’s way off, which there shouldn’t be very much at that point anyway. I’ll start with the first chapter, then the last chapter, then Chapter 2, then the penultimate chapter, and so on, until I arrive at the true “middle” of the book. This way, I can connect some dots that I didn’t see earlier and fix mistakes that didn’t immediately jump out when I review the novel sequentially. This process usually takes two days.
*Then, it’s off to the editor, and I start writing the next book.
Anyhoo, that’s a process I’ve been following with the last couple novels. It has worked pretty well.
That’s one to accomplish a one-draft novel. As you can see, it’s not truly one draft. You go over it many times, but by the time you’re done, there’s no rewriting and everything is nice and clean.
Time to go to bed so I can get another early start tomorrow.
Have a good night.
PROGRESS SO FAR:
Rat City (Chicago Rat Shifter Book 2): 51,696 words.
Writing App Book: 16,900 words. Drafted and needs final touches.
Writing App Tool: 90% complete
Indie Author Confidential Vol. 6: Published.
