I am finally DONE with the first really solid draft of the new novel. Fixes start next week, but I’m so happy to have reached this point. This has been a tough one.

I reported in my prior post that I was about to begin writing “the last five to ten-thousand words.” Not too surprisingly, that turned out to be over 11,000 words. Right now, the total word count is about 130,500, which is not long by the standards of epic fantasy, but it’s long for me. By comparison, my longest novel, Memory, was 132,000 words, and I won’t be at all surprised if the new one surpasses that in its final form.

The goal of course is to have just enough words and not too many. The real reason I get hung up on word count is that I find shorter novels so much more pleasant to work with in the revision stage. (Meaning EASIER.)

Oh, and I just checked the date of my last post and realized I’ve written 11K words in slightly over a week, which is a feat for a slow writer like me. This involved mostly twelve hour work days, with no exercise.

But the rush is over. I’m taking two days off, and then on Tuesday it’s back to a reasonable schedule with regular work outs.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND!

To review: In mid-March I finished a “partial draft” of the novel-in-progress, meaning that most of the structure was there, but a lot was left to do. That draft was 72,000 words long — a short novel.

In my last work-in-progress report, I explained that I’d been revising that partial draft, but I was about to begin writing new material, specifically, the end of the novel, which I hadn’t tackled before. So how did that go? Well… I HAVEN’T WRITTEN THE END OF THIS NOVEL YET, OKAY?

I think what happened (I haven’t reviewed my detailed notes and it all tends to run together in my memory) is that I first wrote a synopsis for a new ending. Then I went back in the manuscript and built up the necessary plot lines that would lead to that ending while making other revisions and adding additional chapters from the points of view of neglected characters. I have now — once again — gotten to the end of the partial draft that I had in mid-March … only I’ve added about 48,000 words to the manuscript. So that first partial draft is, by far, the most underwritten first draft I’ve ever done.

And once again, I’m ready to move forward and write the last five to ten-thousand words.

Wish me luck.

REMINDERS:

* Sign up for my newsletter before the end of June for a chance to win the audiobook edition of The Red trilogy on CD.

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My schedule got a bit turned around today. Usually I do a writing stint in the morning, but today I needed to be in town in the morning, so I went to the gym while I was there … and I’ve been trying to get back into the writing mood ever since. Maybe posting a progress report will give me the incentive I need!

So here’s where things stand:
In mid-March I finished a “partial draft” of the novel-in-progress, meaning that most of the structure was there, but a lot was left to do. That draft was 72,000 words long — a short novel. I’ve been revising and expanding since then, and have added 30,000 words, which is a decent length for a novel, but still shorter than, for example, The Red. I suspect I’ll be adding another 20,000 words or so, which would make this novel roughly the length of The Trials.

Why this discussion of word count? Well, it’s one way to measure progress, and I need the encouragement. No excuse for being so slow about this sort of thing, but that’s the way it is. The next section that I have to tackle in this revision is going to be especially challenging, because I never actually wrote it, in the original draft. I just typed some notes into the manuscript, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS DESCRIBING WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN AND WHY BECAUSE WHEN I REACHED THIS POINT IN THE FIRST DRAFT I JUST REALLY REALLY WANTED TO MOVE ON TO THE FINAL SECTION. This isn’t the first time I’ve skipped forward to the end, but when I’ve done it before, I’ve been much closer to end. Oh well. Whatever works. This book will be done eventually. I’m looking forward to handing a solid draft off to beta readers, because after that, I get to work on short fiction!

In the meantime, here’s an interesting article on near-future science fiction (sadly, no mention of the Red Trilogy): The Future is Almost Now. I have more thoughts related to this topic, but will save that for another post.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

I’m continuing to revise the new novel, and the word count is growing steadily. My target, when I start a novel, is 100,000 words. Epic fantasy writers would laugh at that as being so short, but to my mind it’s a good, solid length. Of course, I almost always overshoot that goal, and I’m sure it’s going to happen again with the new book. Right now I’m at 95,000 words, and I have no doubt at all that I’ll be well past the 100K mark before I’m done.

In other news, io9.com has decided to reboot the io9 Book Club. I was thrilled when I found out yesterday that the first book to read and discuss is The Red. The idea is to encourage people to read the book over the next month, and then to talk about it online. In early June I’ll stop by at io9.com to answer reader questions. More information here. I’m hoping for some interesting discussion.

When I look back over the past year, I’m a little perplexed at what I’ve done with the time. I feel like I’ve been frantically busy, but I don’t have a lot of new material to show for it. Since turning in Going Dark, I’ve managed to finish only one short story, and a really rough draft of a new novel.

Part of the issue, of course, was that all three novels in The Red trilogy were released last year, and that meant a lot of time spent on publicity (and anxiety… I’m good at anxiety). I also had a really hard time letting go emotionally of the trilogy and moving on to the new novel. It’s a situation I’ve faced before. After finishing my novel Vast, it took a long time for me to really get into writing Limit of Vision. But I got there eventually, and I feel like I’ve finally hit my stride with the new novel.

What turned things around for me was getting an outside opinion. I don’t think I’ve ever before shown a partial manuscript to anyone, on the grounds that I don’t want to be so discouraged by a negative response that I abandon the project. But I’m older now, more experienced, thicker skinned — and besides, I’d reached the point where I was spinning my wheels. So in early March I sent the manuscript off to Judith Tarr, who edited all three volumes of The Red trilogy. She evaluated what I had, made some nice comments, and pointed out where she thought the story was most lacking — and the feedback has really helped. I’ve been writing steadily since then. I went back to the beginning, and started filling out the lean parts, and dealing with all the figure-this-out-later notes, and progress is being made.

Some of this involves new scenes, but some is just detail work. A few days ago I was dealing with the question of what size helicopter was needed, how many seats were available, and who was sitting where. Today I’ve been racking my brain to get the timeline right. Since I’ve got characters operating on opposite sides of the planet, I need to know the day/night cycles, and how long it takes to get from point A to point B. I’m not sure how concerned readers are with this sort of thing, but it matters to me. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve been making changes in my writing routine in the hope of writing more, and writing faster. One of those changes is to try to do frequent Work-In-Progress Reports like this one. Maybe that will keep me accountable to myself!

Edit: Speaking of Judith Tarr…I just found out she’s holding a sale on editorial services, among other things. Find the details here.