When I hit 80,000 words on my latest novel I was pretty sure I’d be hard-pressed to push it across the 100K line so I lowered my goal on the little writing meter to the right over there. Well, yesterday I hit 100K and I’ve just barely got things set up for the resolution. I didn’t try to pad things. I just happened. So perhaps 120K isn’t out of the question after all.
With any luck this will be the most complex set of plotlines I’ve worked with to date. It may be a good idea to sit down and map out how this last big scene is going to play out before I get into it. With at least three separate main characters in different places, a small cast of “NPCs”, and multiple additional elements that could become involved a little planning might help both keep everything straight and ratchet up the tension as much as possible. I guess we’ll see.
It feels good to be within striking distance of the end of yet another novel. This will make the fifth novel-length work I’ve written, so it’ll be safe to say that completing novels is no longer an issue. I’m a writer. I can get them done. Where I’m now lacking is editing. With only one of the previous four have I gone back after I finished and changed what was there more significantly than copy-edits. It’s a skill I need to develop, I suspect, if I’m going to go as far with my writing as I’d like.
What’s next? Nothing yet. I’ve got a book in a totally different setting on the back burner, but in the interest of building up my editing chops I think it’s time to go back to the novel I wrote before this one and work it over. There are a lot of things I’m happy about with that one, but I still think there’s something lacking there. So I’ll be going through that one while I continue to develop the ideas for the next one.
But of course I still have to finish this one, and I expect I’m looking at at least another 3-4 weeks on that unless I start feeling less sleepy at nights and get more writing time in then–which is entirely possible if I get excited enough about the ending. Here’s hoping. While it’s taken far less time to write than the previous novel, Seven months is plenty.
Nice job!