So I’m sticking with my new diet of 1000 words per day and it’s going great. Usually I’m finished by noon or 1 pm having put in a good four hours or so of work. I’ve found that I spend less time surfing the editor and literary sites I love so much, at least in the morning while I’m working. In the afternoon I can surf to my heart’s content although I’m also finding that when I’m knee-deep in a new book, I don’t have much interest left over for anything except for BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and a few new books I bought myself as a reward (GRACELING, MAGICKEEPERS and the new Michelle Paver, OATHBREAKER which I am dying to read but am forcing myself to wait until I’ve completed this first draft.)
The title of this blog refers both to the thrilling feeling I get when I am close to the end of my first run-through, and also the urge (firmly squashed) to rush the process of getting there. Of taking short cuts with the plot or bounding ahead without sufficient preambling. It’s a pun.
I thought I’d be done at the end of this week. I still may. I have 53,000 words and I had estimated the manuscript at about 55,000 but I know I have at least three more chapters left to write and two of them are going to be difficult. Indeed I’ve been fearing them for a long time now. I know what I want to accomplish with these chapters but I don’t want to be too predictable or pedestrian. My aim (otherwise I’ll never get through it) is to write down as much of the action I can and map things out and then continue to the end, put the whole thing aside for three days- (3 days in which I will do nothing but hike, read, watch dvds and play with my kids) and then beginning at the beginning I will work through the whole manuscript again. The first of what will be many revisions before sending it off to my beta readers.
But the best-laid plans, outlines and blah de blah aside, it always takes me longer than I expect it to. Things pop up, relationships between characters need to be clarified, motivations explained, things wrapped up, tension heightened, not to mention writing the end scene which should not be pat or a cop-out or too cloying or any other rotten thing, but should seem effortlessly and perfectly right. I can see it all in my mind, it’s getting it down on paper that is the trick.
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