2463 words done today, and the novel is now DONE!
Wow, what a ride.
I started writing on December 19, so it took me about 30 days. If you take out the bad week I had, the actual number of writing days was around 21 or so. Not bad for a 60K novel written over the holiday season and all the crazy political stuff going on in the last couple weeks.
To put things in context, if this were NaNoWriMo, I still would have won it with plenty of time left over…
As far as speed goes, this novel actually is not my fastest. My record is 7 days. My longest is 18 months. This stacks somewhere near the top of the curve, but not the very top.
Anyhoo, now the “post-production” steps begin promptly. No breaks.
I finished the outline and started looping immediately. I looped through about 6 chapters tonight. There are 38 chapters total, or about 15% of the novel.
For my “final master loop,” here’s what I usually do:
- I start with the first chapter
- Then I do the last chapter
- Then I do chapter 2
- Then the penultimate chapter
- I do this until I meet the story in the middle. Then I spend a little extra time in the middle. I usually go over the “middle middle” chapters twice.
This is a very good way of catching interesting loopholes and inconsistencies as you loop. It pits your earlier writing directly against your later writing, and sometimes you’d be surprised at how little things differ and you don’t realize it over time.
I’m taking my time with the final loop since this is a Book 1. It’s worth taking the time to iron out any remaining issues with the story. There aren’t many, but I always like to go back and review everything.
The looping sessions aren’t rewriting. I may add additional content, remove words or sentences here and there, but mainly I’m “stitching” everything together, making sure that what’s on the page makes sense given what comes before and after. I’m also paying attention to the five senses and anything that might pull the reader out of the story, as well as trying to anticipate what the reader might be thinking every step of the way, and making sure the story honors that.
Some chapters require more work than others. I usually do 1-2 chapters in a sitting and then force myself to do something else for a bit before picking up another 1-2 chapters.
I’ve got to send the book off to fact checkers as early as Saturday, so I will prioritize the sections they need to read first. Otherwise, I’ll be following the method above.
Once the book goes off to fact checkers, I have some “business” stuff to do. Emails, bookkeeping, etc. I may take the next couple days off just to catch up, or I may not. We’ll see.
At this point, I’m waiting for the first chapter for Book 2 to congeal in my head. It’s fuzzy right now, but I think as I finish looping, it’ll come into very sharp focus soon. Once that happens, I’ll start writing immediately.
Book #53 is officially in existence. This is my 30th novel as well, which is a pretty cool milestone. My goal is 64 books by the end of 2021. That’s a stretch goal. Even if I only get to 60, I’m still in a great spot come 2022.
But no celebration for me other than taking a brief moment to think about it. Just gotta keep doing the work. OK, maybe I’ll make myself a Moscow Mule tonight. But you guys know me—I’m not one for celebrating too much. The work itself is its own reward, and this was a hell of a fun novel to write. Now I just need to make sure readers have as much fun reading it as I did writing it, which means strategic fact checking, a killer cover and book description, a final master loop, and then a good round of editing by my editor.
Have a good night.
PROGRESS TRACKER
Words: 2463
Calories: 0
Miles: 0
Time on bike: 0
TOTAL
Words: 59,435
Calories: 1050
Miles: 31.5
Time on bike: 630 minutes (10.5 hours)
Pounds lost: 4
