2776 words today. Cold Hard Magic is officially finished!!!! The novel clocked in at exactly 50,000 words, almost exactly the same as Book 1.
I learned another important lesson that will be helpful to those writing into the dark.
Wow, another very, very interesting novel. This one took a LEFT TURN at the end that I didn’t see coming. And when I say left turn, I mean it.
It was such a left turn, I second-guessed myself. Late last night, I was lying in bed thinking, “This is crazy. I don’t know about this.”
I kept thinking that maybe I overwrote part of the final battle—sometimes when you write into the dark, you go down avenues that you don’t ultimately use, so you have to throw words away. It’s part of the process. I wondered if this happened. I got smack dab in the middle of the final battle and hit a WALL. I had no idea what was going to happen and that’s really unusual this late in a novel.
So I slept on it.
I decided to review the entire novel, just superficially. I wanted to see if there was anything I forgot when I was writing the last quarter of the novel.
Sometimes, when you write into the dark and don’t know what to do next, the answer is most often behind you.
Kind of like an airplane when the flight attendant says, “Please note that the nearest exit may be behind you.” In a crisis, people don’t always remember that.
Anyhoo, I reviewed the novel, particularly a few sections that I wasn’t sure about.
And sure enough, my creative voice remained true. It had planted ALL the seeds for the final battle. I was just too stubborn to realize it. In fact, some of the lines I write very early in the first couple of chapters were almost eerie when you read the ending. I had zero idea where this story was going, and it’s still awe-inspiring to me how your mind will tell a story if you let it. Your job is to simply get out of the way and give your mind what it needs. In my case, it was to re-review a segment of the story that I had forgotten but that held the answer to what I was looking for.
I went back to the final chapter and the next thing I knew, I was typing the final sentence.
So remember, if you get stuck in a novel while writing into the dark, the answer is probably behind you.
Anyway, I’m feeling great tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll start my final loop, going through and making spelling/grammar corrections as well as any story items that need to be corrected. The novel is 31 chapters, so I’ll plan on 15 chapters tomorrow and 15 chapters Tuesday. Then the book will go to my copyeditor, followed by a proofreader sometime in early September. I’ll publish Cold Hard Magic as soon as it’s back from my proofreader, so more than likely it will launch sometime shortly after The Chicago Rat Shifter series.
Have a good night.
PROGRESS SO FAR
Cold Hard Magic: 50,200 words. Currently in self-editing.
Indie Author Confidential Vol. 7: 7706 words.
Rat City (Chicago Rat Shifter Book 2): 76,000 words. With my proofreader.
Writing App Book: 16,900 words. Drafted and needs final touches.
Writing App Tool: 90% complete
Indie Author Confidential Vol. 6: Published.
