If you look at the “In Progress” bar to the right, you might see something interesting. That 100%? Yeah. I finished the initial draft of WiW last night. It didn’t quite make it to 100,000 words, but that doesn’t matter. I wasn’t trying to hit that number spot on. It was a number I didn’t want to exceed (but I would have if the story called for it). There’s probably a couple months of work left on it, between having some people close to me check it out and editing.
Finishing it was sort of anti-climactic. I always hear stories of how great authors feel after they’ve written that last word, but I just felt numb. I sat in front of my computer and stared at it for a couple minutes, dutifully copied out the word count into a spreadsheet I keep to track each day’s output (there’s a feature I need in StoryBox), updated the progress widget on the blog, and then stared some more.
Maybe it’s just that I know there’s still work ahead, with editing, querying, and publishing. Maybe I had just pushed so hard to get through the last chapter. I just don’t know.
But, this morning, I’m excited. It’s done. I think it might be pretty good. I won’t know until I’ve read it a couple weeks from now.
I’m going to give myself through the weekend to decide on the next project.
One of my concerns in making that choice is timing. In November, I’m going to David Farland’s Writers Death Camp, and he recommends being well into the project you’re going to be working on before getting there. But the timing is such, if I start a new project in three days and it follows the pattern of WiW (90k words), I could be done with it only days before going to the workshop. Or worse, I’ll finish it on Monday or Tuesday and have nothing to write for the rest of that week.
Congrats on knocking out the first draft! A lot of dedication. 🙂
I do the same as you: Keep a spreadsheet for my daily word count. I find it helpful for accountability and setting reasonable goals for myself. No sense setting a 5k/day goal limit when my spreadsheet tells me I’m averaging less than 1k a day, right? haha
Good luck on your next project and editing.
Rock on! Congrats!
I’m never really certain that I *trust* “The End”. Like maybe I’m just kidding myself. And, so far, every time, I’ve gone back and adjusted the ending–just a bit–or more than a bit–a day or two later.
I guess I don’t expect anything special when I end a short story. It’s just, you know, *done*.
Good luck with the next project!
-David
Reena – keeping an automated record of the daily word count is going into StoryBox in one of the first updates after V1.0. I hope, before NaNo starts (not that I’m doing NaNo this year). For me, it’s an accountability thing. How well did I do hitting my targets. I have to know 🙂
It’s like sprinting near the end of the race. By the time you hit that ribbon, you’re exhausted and just want to catch your breath. I wrote 7k words in one day finishing my most recent, and by the end I almost didn’t believe I was actually done. It felt so strange, like…really? Could this possibly be it?
Hopefully now you’ve had a day to distance yourself from it, maybe taken a day off to watch a movie or read a good book. All that work will be waiting for you, so make sure it feels like a brand new race. 🙂
Actually, for me, I tried to sprint, but found I pretty much mentally limited myself to my normal 2k a day output, though the last day was 2700 because I was SOOOO close I had to finish. The day before the last day? 300…
I’ve got some readers reading it. I’m going to try to forget about it until they’re done 🙂 I’ve already started planning my next book and I’m probably going to start writing it in a couple days.
When I’m writing, my goal is always 3k, but a lot of times I won’t hit it. 2k a day is pretty solid rate (you’ll basically have a 100k word novel in about two months).
Readers reading it? Exciting. And terrifying *grin*