Just Keep Swimming
Dec. 1st, 2012 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anthimeriaAnother chapter down! Just wrapped up chapter nine of Trial. This marks the one-third point of the book.
Wordcount so far is 12k, a little higher than I was aiming for in the rough but only by 2k, so not bad. And if the next two thirds are the same length, giving me a final wordcount of 36k, I won't be sad. Not quite on target--target for dI is 30k--but not bad.
I set my dI target so low because in both the novels I've finished so far, I've added a substantial number of words during editing. On the order of several thousand. Given that I want this to be a quick little book, aiming for 30k seemed reasonable.
While I definitely don't want the finished product to be over 40k, I think I'll be okay with a rough of 30-37k.
Also, I'm going to try something new this time. Since I'm writing this one so quickly, and it's such a little book, I'm going to pause here to evaluate the book so far. I know there's a lot of editing to do, but if I go over the first third and take detailed notes of developing trends and things to work on, hopefully I'll go into the next third better prepared. And if it works--or is at least not detrimental--I'll do it again when I hit the two-thirds mark.
I've never done that kind of in-progress assessment on a novel before, but I've never gone so long between novels before, and I've especially never had two novels stall out in a row before. So I'm going to do everything I can to keep this one on track and make sure I nip any problems in the bud. I was 20k into Sanctuary before I figured out I wouldn't be able to get any further with it; I'd like to prevent that from ever happening again.
And I'm not allowing myself to look at the dang picture book again for another day or two, till the full week-of-waiting is out. In some ways, I've written these last two chapters of Trial to distract myself from the picture book, so even if it doesn't work out, it's been good for my writing.
Wordcount so far is 12k, a little higher than I was aiming for in the rough but only by 2k, so not bad. And if the next two thirds are the same length, giving me a final wordcount of 36k, I won't be sad. Not quite on target--target for dI is 30k--but not bad.
I set my dI target so low because in both the novels I've finished so far, I've added a substantial number of words during editing. On the order of several thousand. Given that I want this to be a quick little book, aiming for 30k seemed reasonable.
While I definitely don't want the finished product to be over 40k, I think I'll be okay with a rough of 30-37k.
Also, I'm going to try something new this time. Since I'm writing this one so quickly, and it's such a little book, I'm going to pause here to evaluate the book so far. I know there's a lot of editing to do, but if I go over the first third and take detailed notes of developing trends and things to work on, hopefully I'll go into the next third better prepared. And if it works--or is at least not detrimental--I'll do it again when I hit the two-thirds mark.
I've never done that kind of in-progress assessment on a novel before, but I've never gone so long between novels before, and I've especially never had two novels stall out in a row before. So I'm going to do everything I can to keep this one on track and make sure I nip any problems in the bud. I was 20k into Sanctuary before I figured out I wouldn't be able to get any further with it; I'd like to prevent that from ever happening again.
And I'm not allowing myself to look at the dang picture book again for another day or two, till the full week-of-waiting is out. In some ways, I've written these last two chapters of Trial to distract myself from the picture book, so even if it doesn't work out, it's been good for my writing.