Monday, January 28, 2008

Progress and Promise

Yesterday's rewrite goal:  41.9% complete
Yesterday's result:     42.8% complete

Glory be, I'm ahead of schedule.

Word count:  194,800

The word count is not falling as fast as it was earlier in the rewrite.  I think reasons for that are that the further I go into the first draft the better the writing gets, the better I know the characters, and I have a much better idea where the story is going so there is less crap that needs to be cut.  On the other hand, my steely resolve to ruthlessly pare the story to the bare essentials is faltering - I find myself leaving scenes that could or should be cut because I, well, I like the scenes.

I really need to stick with what I told myself while writing the first draft and seeing the word count balloon:  Make the story the best it can be and to hell with word count and '100,000 is the most marketable size' conventional wisdom.

On a different subject, I've been asked if I only post on Mondays.  No, I've been posting when the mood strikes, but a schedule is a good idea so I hereby commit to posting no less than every Monday.

2 comments:

Scott said...

This has nothing to do with your post (although I think the blog tracking your writing progress is interesting and gutsy). I saw you over on Nathan Bransford's blogs, one of the few who expressed interest in the Shakespearian query idea. I'm going to use that idea for my own blog contest, and I'm afraid I'll have a contest and nobody will come. So, I figured I should at least write to the people who've expressed interest.

Drop me a note at scott(at)scottrhoades(dot)com if you want to play.

Loren DeShon said...

scott,

Note dropped, I'm interested.

allen