Another Milestone

Blog No. 392

I’m nowhere near finished the first draft of the Invasion Novel and a lot of that has to do with my lack of effort over the last few days. My sleep is still all over the place and after a few bad nights I failed to reach my minimums. It’s not uncommon for me to have one or two completely sleepless nights in a month, but seeing as I haven’t had a particularly good sleep in a while, I felt like a zombie the last few days. That’s my excuse at least. With that in mind, I have reached a new personal best. The Invasion Novel is now the largest story I’ve written (and I’m not finished, yet).

The first draft of Pilot used to hold the record at just over 82 000 words. It took me a year to write that and I’ve said it multiple times before, but I do intend to get back to that story in the future, but as it’s part of a series, I wanted to get a stand-alone novel not only finished but ideally to use it to get an agent. But that’s another topic. I’m not sure how long the first draft of the Invasion Novel will ultimately be. I’m closing in on an ending, but there is a lot to wrap up still and I have a list of things to cut and add to the book for a second draft. I’m guessing that there will be a good 20 000 words to cut with an unknown number to add. As to how much more there is to write? I have no idea. 20 000, 30 000, more? Less?

I’m trying to not worry about that too much. I’d like to have a final draft close to the 100 000 word mark, give or take. I think it’s a good size for this story and seeing as I’d like to get it in the hands of an agent, a nice round number that can be moulded to what they think will be publishable. Again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I have to finish writing it first, but being at 90 000 words feels like an accomplishment.

Not that I need a pat on the back. I need to be more consistent with my writing. To be honest, I was hovering around that word count without reaching it for longer than I’d like. I’m pretty happy with the section I was working on, but it was a bit of a bear to write. It’s pretty action heavy and I find writing action scenes tiring. It’s really easy to be repetitive which is a problem I have at the best of times. Trying to be creative in the actions and the descriptions when things happen repetitively in close proximity. Yeah, action is hard. To top it off, the book isn’t intended to be action heavy, so I feel more pressure in the few sections where there is action.

It’s making me think that there’s a balance problem in the book. More things to fix for the second draft. I feel sorry for future Ben having to make this mess into something. That was something I had to really embrace to get to this point, though. The first draft is always going to be a terrible disaster. The only way to make something good is to make something and then fix it. At least in writing and at least for me. Not to get dramatic. Like I said, I’m pretty happy with sections of the book, but even those will need some work. I suppose I should get back to it. The only way to get to 100 000 words is to get past the 90 000 word mark.