Housesitting: finished... a first draft

About 6:30 this evening in a Starbucks, drinking a terrible 'skinny' Vanilla Latte, I finished the first draft of Housesitting.

I guess I finished a novel.

Here's how the final word count looked:

Green for go

As you can tell, I slipped a bit past my more extravagant projections. However, I don't think for a minute this is the actual word count of the final book. Next up is rewriting and editing. While I've rewritten bits and pieces of the book while I've gone along (and in a few places, huge swathes) the next time will be the first time I can look at the whole thing, as one piece, and edit with the entire plot in place.

The ending was tough. Not just because endings are tough ("What, I have to finish now? But they're talking! Can't I just let them talk?") but because it veered left and right, and I really wasn't sure how it was going to go. I'll admit it could have been shorter. Hell, it might end up being cut to ribbons. We'll see.

So what's next? Well, I'd expect editing and rewriting to take a couple of weeks at least. When I'm done with that, I'll probably be sharing it with a few people who I trust. And then... we dip into the crazy world of electronic publishing for the first time. And you'll be able to buy a copy.

Between now and then, as and when I find bits of the book I feel comfortable sharing, I'll probably throw them up here. So stay tuned. Questions are welcome obviously... oh and while I have you...

... can anyone think of a better title?

Oh and by the way! Only two days after deadline, how about that? Given the week I've had, I honestly think that's very little short of miraculous....

Soooo close...

Five scenes to go. Well they might not be whole scenes, maybe parts of scenes. Five index cards, basically. And look what we have here:

I'll be a bit over 125K at first draft, but I know I'll go down again when I edit. And before March 1st. Well, maybe. Tomorrow's a crazy day, writing will be sidetracked. But it's so close I can smell it.

107K; bored of Housesitting word counts yet?

Two weeks (almost) and about 12,000 words done...

As you can see, closing in on another made-up word count. 110K is so last month. Impressed that tonight's writing got me to exactly 107K though.

I'd love to tell you the ending is right around the corner, but it's not. I will say that the last half of the last act is coming right up, which includes some shocking revelations, some very kinky material and hopefully at least one slam-bang-thank you ma'am sex scene. I say 'hopefully', I know it's coming. I'm more 'hopeful' that it's good. Funnily enough I always worry!

Anyway. 12,000 words in two weeks is a steady pace (strictly speaking it's 13 days, I guess) but it's not record breaking. It's been a busy couple of weeks and my usual writing habits got disrupted a few times. Hoping this weekend to really put a dent in the final section and start on the downhill slope.

Of course, I have 13 days to go until my self-imposed deadline. I don't feel confident I'll get there, but you never know. Sex scenes tend to go long, and I've got one more transformation scene too, which could be a doozy... we'll see. I'll be pretty close I think. And close counts in novel writing. And horseshoes. And hand grenades. Because I said so....

Hoo-boy... 95K on Housesitting

This weekend was really, really frustrating writing wise - right up until it wasn't.

I have a lot on my mind work-wise at the moment, and a bad mental state regarding other stuff outside of your control isn't conducive to good writing. It didn't help that today I ended up making two round trips to my favorite coffee shop (once to retrieve my wallet from home) and when I finally got there, ready to write, found they'd closed early for the Super Bowl. (WHAT?! People need coffee!!)

Anyway, I found a niche in a chain coffee shop, plugged in, sipped my brew, and finally it started to come together.

Boom. Over 4,100 words. I was actually so close to 95K earlier tonight I wrote a quick scene just to get to it. A good day.

Do I think 110K will mark the end of the book? No, no I don't. I have at least three major, huge scenes left to go, and they tend to average 3-5K... that plus other 'stuff' and I'll be going beyond 110K, I'm sure of it. But hey! It's all good stuff going in at the end, including, I'm pretty sure... my first ever threesome. Uh-huh. We're cranking it to 11....

Another day, another word count - 86K on Housesitting

Judging by the complete lack of comments on these updates, I don't think I'm thrilling any of you with my tales of gradual progress on Housesitting. I can't say I blame you, but indulge me - these check-ins are a great way to keep me honest, and marking progress feels good. So here's today's update:

As you can see, I re-adjusted the overall word counter, so I'm back creeping towards that healthy green again - I'm in the sickly yellow-green period right now. Happily though, I fully doubled today's word count (and did the same yesterday in fact) so progress is being made. Today was something of a slog but as long as I have the words down, that'll do for me. (I also re-read some of the more recent stuff and it didn't totally suck, which is always good.)

Still not sure if 110K is a reasonable expectation for the total word count, but I don't hear anyone complaining yet. (You might when you read it, who knows.) Want to give you value for money, folks.

Alright, time to get back to it.

Ding ding, 75K... and with Act III to go

Some good writing sessions on Housesitting the past two days. Found a new spot that I really like, and that always helps. Anyway, it meant this milestone was breezed past this morning:

Ah, those heady days when I figured I'd be done by this point! Not true, and soon I'll be resetting that counter to a more realistic figure - because as the post title says, I'm about to begin Act III of Housesitting. Some big moments have come and gone in Act II, which was plotted, in the dim and distant past, as the ending of the book - but then I just had so many more ideas.

Act III is actually the most loosely plotted part of the book so far. I have a rough idea of where it goes, and thankfully I have an ending, but how I get there will be interesting. There are a few big questions I have to ask, and I'm trying to answer them organically rather than in the interests of plot.

That probably sounds like pretentious rubbish, so let me clarify. I have a few plot points to resolve before I get to the end of the book. What I'm trying to do is actually have them make sense in the context of the book, and make them feel like natural events that these characters would drive, rather than making it feel like I'm shoehorning the characters into a plot. That is actually tougher than you'd think. In some cases - in a few cases actually - there's been a feeling as I'm writing of "No, wait - that wouldn't happen, that character wouldn't do that" and it's changed the book's course.

These are Writer Problems.

Anyway - to the other big question, will I finish by March 1st? I am really not sure. If I had to guess right now, 40K more words isn't even going to surprise me. At my own preferred pace of 1K words a day, I can neatly make that deadline. But strictly speaking my deadline was to publish, not to finish. So... that's going to be harder. Even when I'm actually 'done' there's still probably going to be a period of editing and rewriting. So... don't hassle me too much if March 1st comes and goes, and you're not reading the finished product.

But feel free to hassle me if it's not written by then at least!

Right, back to examining Act III and plotting more shenanigans.

This is how we do it; 70K on Housesitting

A good morning and a good scene. All dialogue, but felt right - and got me to where I wanted the scene to be in an unexpected but natural way.

And brought me here, too:

The 75K target is utterly bogus now, I know that, but for whatever reason I'm waiting until I pass it before I reset. If I had to take a guess right now I'm heading towards 100K, but honestly, I'm not even sure. More on that later.

60K on Housesitting

Christmas was never going to be a great time for writing - family commitments, blah blah blah - but to make it worse I got sick and had even less energy or motivation. Bah. Humbug.

Still, I'm proceeding, and that's all I wanted to note in this entry. Passed by 60,000 words total on Housesitting today; still going strong. I am now 100 percent certain that the finished book will be bigger than my target (75K) but I'm going to get there before I make a guess at what the final total will be.

Also for the record: 58 days to deadline.