Chapter 23 is dead!

[jpskewedthrone]

So I finished chapter 23 today after a marathon writing session in which I produced many words. It didn't end where I thought it would end though, so the "final" scene was bumped to chapter 24. (And now you see why my books just keep going and going and . . .)

In a revelatory moment this morning at the gym, I discovered exactly how this book is going to end. And I mean exactly. The last scene, the last action, and the last sentence. The scene I was contemplating for the ending . . . has been bumped to the beginning of book 2. Are you sensing a pattern here? This is perhaps why "trilogies" end up not really being trilogies. (Although so far my one and only trilogy is actually just a trilogy and this current project looks like it will follow that pattern.)

In any case, I have one week left in which to finish the first draft of this novel. Then there will be a 10 day break while I rush off to Kansas City and grade AP Calculus papers (and try to sell everyone there my books). Once I return, the rest of June will be revisions, revisions, revisions so I can send this sucker in, hopefully in a much smaller, shortened form. Here's the current gigantic, colossal word count!

181,000 / 100,000 (181.0%)

Well of Sorrows

Comments

Re: Word Count Method

[vespican.livejournal.com]

I was assuming you used the estimated count method. I do understand that that is what most folks in the publishing industry want. Yet it seems that there are the occasional oddballs who prefer an actual count. I suppose one should be aware of just what a particular industry denizen wants when submitting.
I imagine that it would not be impossible to cut down to 120,000 or so. After all, I cut my first one from 135,000 to around 99,000. I can remember only removing one actual scene. Everything else was a matter of removing a little excess here, and a little excess there. Funny, but when I was in high school and went back and re-wrote something, it usually got longer. Now, even without trying, things tend to get shorter. (I lost ten pages in two run throughs of my second.)
Dave