Celebrate!
How to write like a demon. 57K in 34 days.
Wow!
I’ve finished the first draft of my WIP (work in progress for those not in the know). I set a goal of August 1st to complete it, and I did. The time zone used is fuzzy. Okay, I borrowed one hour and forty-three minutes from August, but I wrote 57K words from June 28-August 1.
The story of my story:
Two years ago, I started a tale of Snow White. The reason remains lost to me, but I abandoned it at 9900 words. Outlined, short blurbs written for what should happen, but abandoned. I pulled it out in June, dusted it off, added more to the outline and began writing on June 28th. I expected to complete it at 40-45K, but the scenes kept growing. My final word count is 67,653. Some of that will be deleted. I’ve already marked two scenes because they wandered away from me.
Writing fast is a high. I set a 1K goal for each day and met it for all but three days. Two days were spent with family (two toddlers = no energy to write) and one day I vegged.
How did I write 57K in 34 days? Internal editor banished. Eyes closed. Music in headphones at times. Heavy use of xxxx for “look this up later” and “I don’t have time for the perfect word”. ** for “I might have used this word six times in the past two paragraphs, check later”. In fact, checking later is one of the keys to racking up the words. It’s an incredible high.
The next step is letting it simmer while I turn to some editing chores I’ve neglected. The Dearly Departed Dating Service is with my beta readers and cover artist. I’m combing the first draft (I write fairly clean) for obvious errors (using chose instead of chosen). When I receive my edits and covers, stay tuned for a release announcement.
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