Step 19: Count the words

Photo courtesy of Unsplash / Scott Webb

I have 23 days more till the first novel's got to be done. 

I'm about to shoot out a caveat. The novels will not be in their final, super polished form. They will be done, but the process of getting a proper, third-party editor isn't something I can magic together.

So technically, they will be 'drafts.' Finished drafts, but not final drafts.

2600 words today. I know I shouldn't count- it's the hours put in, not the word count that matters. But it still feels good. I could have done more today, definitely, but it's a good start. My golden amount would be 4-6k a day. At this point in my writing 'process', I can crank out about a thousand words in half an hour to an hour if I'm not mired in a plot issue.

It's a freeing feeling, the confidence to be able to do it. Far from the more prolific writers I know, but still, I feel proud to be able to grind. The content is not amazing-, especially for these novels. Most of my short stories and poems are 90% done in one draft, editing included. Most of the time, that's because I have a really clear idea of where the plot is going, what the ending is like, so I can concentrate on the language. Also, the lack of readers or exposure means I can get away with some sub-par shit. A lot of my pieces need some editing.

But this book- a sprawling fantasy novel...it's plot, and structure, pacing, and events that take up most of my efforts. That and the realisation I got to crank it all out at breakneck speed. The language takes a backseat.

After all the amateur stories, poems and the travesty that is my first novel- yeah, I've written one...I feel like I *can* actually crank 'em out at a good rate.

I have a fondness for writing short stories.

There's a Liars League coming up and I have an idea for a story. Maybe I'll find the time to do it- with a word limit of 1200 it might be oddly freeing. The theme is Sex, drugs and rock and roll and whilst sitting with my toy-soldier-lawyer-buddy I came up with an idea.

I've got the first sentence ready to go:

Pussies overdose on heroin by accident.

Yeah. I might rephrase that a bit. Also, it's offensive, certainly. But sometimes it seems like these days just about everything is, and there's something wrong about that.

It'll be (if I damn well write it) about a Buddhist who knows exactly how to game the karmic system. He fucks up *just* enough to avoid nirvana, and lives a good enough life each time so he can line up his next life: which involves maximising the amount of sex, drugs and rock and roll he can live on.

He's someone who remembers his past lives, but games the hell out of it.

Hence why he overdoses, on purpose, depending on what his karma's at.

I think I'll write the story so the future keeps progressing, as in, he russurects in the future each time. It'll be a fun list of the kind of debauchery that might go in some twisted spec-sci-fi way.

It'll need a good ending.