Mid February: Two Goals Accomplished

Well, well, well, well, well, mid February... it looks like I should've stopped a couple well's ago. It also looks like, as we meet, I have now accomplished TWO of my writing goals that I set for myself for 2025.

This one is the one that has been taking a while. As it should. It's a novel. I didn't just start this in 2025, I started it well before. Well, well, well before. But I knew I needed to finish it in 2025. So, I kept up my pace that I was on and I knew if I did that, I'd get it done in early 2025. I get this urge sometimes, when I'm close to finishing a project, I don't know what it is, it's an urge to stop. To slow myself down. Like I'm afraid to finish something. As if I won't do it right. Not sure what that is, but it's an urge I have to fight. Thankfully, I did, because the feeling of completing something this massive feels so satisfying.

A little context for this manuscript and my writing process. When I write a first draft of something, it is almost ALWAYS longer than what I want. The first manuscript I wrote, I was aiming for under 100,000 words, as I have read many places that new/unpublished authors should aim for under 100,000 words. The first draft of that manuscript came out to somewhere around 108,000 words. It wasn't bad, I just knew I needed to trim a little over 8,000 words from it, which isn't so bad because a lot of times on a second pass I find many wordy sentences that can be cut down without even changing the integrity of the story. After a couple passes, I got it under 99,000 and the story was better for it. So, I knew I could do it. I knew with the new manuscript I'd aim for under 100,000 words, I knew I'd go over, and I knew I'd trim.

A little background on this story, it's a story of the origins of how several people get special powers and then also how they come to meet one another, find some bad guys, battle them, you know, good ol' super hero stuff. It has 9 characters and the intention was for the manuscript to be written in 9 sections, one for each character. All good and fine, each section of multiple chapters for each character could be around 11,000 words and reach 99,000 right? Of course, I'd be wordy. I'd trim later. Right?

So, after developing my characters and doing some world-building and outlining, I was ready to start writing on the week of Halloween... 2023.

I wanted to monitor my weekly word count just to keep myself at a decent pace. I was hoping I could finish this rough draft in 6 or 7 months if I just wrote about 4,000 words a week, which sounded easy enough. And, in fact, I was going at a great weekly pace.

But, you know, life happens. Good and bad.

A couple of weeks, other things came up, and I didn't get to write at all. And then, notice that BIG gap up there? April to July. I know what you're thinking, no, I wasn't participating in the very rare spring-to-summer hibernation. And no, I didn't get my toe stuck in the shower drain and live for three months in the shower. And no, I didn't get entered into witness protection. It was actually good news. In a way. Productive news, anyway. That was around the time a script of mine was doing really well in a contest... like, well, well, well. And a story of mine that had done well in a past contest was getting highlighted on Coverfly. I had also decided that I needed to start querying agents and managers for my other manuscript, for my short stories, and for my scripts. I also felt like, with the good things going on with my script and story, maybe something might happen. And I needed to be prepared. I needed to have scripts and stories polished and ready... I needed to have loglines and pitches and synopses good to go.

And so, I spent a lot of time polishing all of that up. Because of that, I didn't get back into the manuscript for a while. I felt like I wouldn't have as much time to commit to that, however, I still found time to work on short stories here and there. They were easier to start and complete in a short amount of time.

But I got back to my manuscript. I knew I'd clear 100,000 words and I was prepared for myself to go over. But I didn't realize just how much over I would go.

That was starting to look like a problem, huh? But uh... wasn't done yet.

There we go, finally done. 210,809 words. As you see, I wrote to myself... that is TWO novels.

And the solution became apparent. It IS two novels. And that's really not a problem. Remember, I mentioned it has 9 distinct sections of 9 different characters. Well, that makes it a lot easier to section off. Not extremely easy, but easier than it would be if this weren't the case. It took me a lot longer to finish my rough draft than I planned, but in addition to my hiatus, I realized it took so long because I was writing TWO novels. It would be one thing if I went over by 15,000 words. I'd hunker down and trim that sucker. But it's twice the length it should be.

However, if that's two manuscripts, then each one is about 5,000 words over. That's nothing for me. The challenge will just be, how exactly do I trim it up? 4 characters for one story, 5 for the other? How exactly do I split it up? Which parts of the story go best together? Which section... besides the end... has the most satisfying ending?

I've already figured out some possible solutions, and I know it will take some reworking in certain areas as I originally planned for this to all be one story. But that will be for my efforts on another day. For now, all I wanted to do was finish the rough draft of my manuscript. And I did. I actually finished the rough draft of two manuscripts. I have another goal on this list, to later work on the second draft of this novel, which will include me sitting down, rereading, refiguring, and deciding on how it will be split up... and then editing those two separate stories.

It's funny, I was feeling really good about my progress as I started the manuscript. The higher the word count got, the better I felt... until it started to get too high... and I worried about just what the hell I was going to do. The word count was getting out of control. I kept writing the same way I always do, but I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach like this was going to be a problem. Until it literally got so big that it was twice the intended size, and I realized, I didn't just feel accomplished for completing a rough draft, I felt INCREDIBLY accomplished for completing two!

I know it will need more work, but I'm proud of what it is right now. It has the fantasy of superheroes, it has, what I hope are, unique characters, unique situations, and unique powers. It has action and comedy and when a character engages in a battle in a grocery story, most importantly, it has my voice.

If I make myself laugh I feel pretty good about it.

For now, I'll leave this story alone and work on other things. I'll return to it later, ready to section it off and trim it and polish it. I'll return to it later, hoping to turn it into something of a diamond. For now, I hope it is a diamond in the rough...

Diamond in the rough draft.