I’m back on the novel this week. With my partner/patron’s permission, I took two weeks off from the schedule to zoom out and focus on blocking out the ending so it didn’t become too awkwardly-sprawling. Given how much of the story was discovered on the fly, the fact that the building blocks of a potentially-satisfying ending exist at all are kind of a marvel to me, but organizing the final shots so they all fire in the most effective order is work I didn’t want to skip for the sake of a daily quota.

Anyway, we’re back on the case now – just passed 72,000 words at this sitting and the first draft will probably land around 84,000. 3-4 weeks should get us there, and so the finish line is in sight on one of the biggest and certainly the most challenging project of my writing life.

Right now it would feel good to finish anything. The last thing I actually completed a first draft of was The Sounds Below back in July, almost four months ago. I’m used to more of those little boosts that come from finishing something. I’ve worked on many things in that time, and started quite a few new things, but I’m getting damned ancy. As I mentioned, a thing which I thought was a short story is now at least a novelette and may actually be a full-ass book; so that’s not getting done this year. I knocked out a lot of a one-act play last week as I was crashing those Equity auditions, it seemed an appropriate choice. I think 3-4 days’ focused work could actually bring that one to fruition.

I’m in-process on the next Earbud piece, and have actually recorded part of it without even having finished the script, so I’m definitely on the hook for that one; and I’m exploring some (ahem) less reputable ways to monetize my abilities, which you may or may not ever actually learn about, Jimmy.

It’ll be a hell of thing when this book’s done.

Finish lines
Tagged on:         

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *