Despite a writing session that netted two thousand words, looks like one final push left for a finished draft. Considering I’ve never estimated a project of this scope and length before, missing the target by a day seems reasonable. At least to me, it does.

When I consulted, if the final code drop ever landed on the initial deadline, the customer would have had a heart attack. It’s sort of assumed that software ships late. Deadlines in that business are suggestions.

Next time, I’ll allow a larger cushion on the back end. Regardless, even with a few more weeks, something tells me the project would have gone much the same way: a long stretch of modest output levels, the pace quickening once across the halfway mark, and a frenetic race against the clock for the final third.

Traveling this far with a novel has taught me one lesson. Well, several, but I’ll write more about those addenda later. My point is, keeping a handle on a novel sized manuscript is not difficult in the way I anticipated.

Finding time for writing is easy, but spending the majority of that allotment on a single project is exhausting. After a few months of facing the same conflicts day in and day out, the mind wants new ground, new adventures. Perhaps working on two projects at once might alleviate that tension. Or maybe not. I can always experiment.

Nearly done with the draft, but it needs one more day of work ( plus the cliffhanger ending). Most of the writing time today went towards editing the whirlwind that was the last 35 pages. For being written so fast, I expected severe carnage. Instead, I uncovered only minor glitches like awkward phrasings and dropped words. A miracle really, because quality control and volume are inversely related. The faster something is written, the more glitches riddle the passages. Years from now I hope that’s a memory, and I’ll write at a faster clip.

And no, the count meter is not broken. Since the new material offset cuts, the net effect is a zero gain in word count today.

Tanqueray is calling my name. I just can’t answer yet…

Sunday is the last day of work this draft. Three scenes left, one pure action, one a mix of action and dialog, the last a narrative driven cliff hanger.

As for today’s session, I recall the events like this: I sat down; I wrote; eight hours later, sixteen hundred new words filled the pages. If every day went like this, the books could write themselves. The odds of that are unlikely. Output ebbs and flows, bowing to no manipulations of mine. It’s just nice after months of grinding through five hundred words a day to finish on a high note. An added plus side to the productivity boost, the past week has definitely been the most fun I’ve had writing. So good, the messed up sleep schedule doesn’t matter.

Nice 1000 word clip today. Parts will need dusting in the morning. Today was mostly action based, which I find makes for an easier cleanup, since the parapgraphs are less dense than standard narrative. Dialog exchanges are also brief here, as this is hardly the time for monologues.

My mind keeps wandering ahead to the last scene, even though there’s two scenes preceding it. I’m considering a bottle of Tanqueray gin ( no carbs, thanks ) for toasting purposes on Sunday. Who knows when I’ll get another chance to celebrate the book.

This is a hell of a weekend for the last mile, too. The leaves are peaking, turning deep, brilliant colors of red and orange.

Dealing with the optometrist ate a huge chunk of the early afternoon, but I must say, staring at the screen is much easier with fresh minted lenses. It’s the difference between eye twitches forcing me off five minutes of every two hours, and putting in a five-hour session.

As I approach the 90,000 word mark, one thought is clear: the last miles are far, far easier than the first. In April, I had roughly 30,000 words and a hunch. My bet was, the back end of the story would largely write itself. And it has, with a few exceptions. I had no empirical basis for this observation, no baseline. Since the first 30,000 words took nearly six months, a window of eighteen to twenty-one months from start to completion appeared reasonable. The hunch panned out, and the blame for the long ramp up laid entirely with the beginning.

Because the first fifty pages are so critical – often writers never get past that point when an agent considers their work, and some never even get that far — I took enormous pains to get them in the pocket the first time round. After the frustration with the other book, and the endless drafts, I couldn’t face the task of writing for a year or more, only to return to discover a steaming pile had replaced what seemed like the good stuff. Straight up, Doctor, it didn’t look that bad when I touched it last. In a way, that’s true, the text didn’t look so awful. It just read like a train wreck.

As long as there’s electricity, this manuscript will be done on Sunday. I have some feedback and a list of to fix items I compiled along the way, but the second week of November it’s off to the pre-submit readers.

I have to say there is a certain sadness that hangs over the writing sessions as of late. Most of the time, I’m buzzing as if on a full out gin binge. Then reality beckons from the corners like a lesson you don’t want to forget, but never want to remember.

This book will die for me soon.

Just finished reading Telling the Story by Peter Rubie. The book is a guide to writing and selling narrative nonfiction. Fiction is my first love, though ninety percent of books sold are nonfiction ( perhaps that amour needs rethinking ) and I enjoy biographies and historical pieces. The Power Broker by Robert Caro is an excellent example of nonfiction narrative.

Peter offers two excellent quotes:

“Unless you have been published, you are not the best judge of your work.”

“Beginning writers seem to fall in love with description in their early drafts and forget that description, like adjectives, should be sprinkled on like salt, not butter.”

I’ll second both of these.

The book covers drafting nonfiction proposals, the value of literary agents in placing manuscripts ( Peter Rubie admits his bias here, he is one ), why projects get rejected and what to look for in a good agent. Included are several nonfiction book proposals for reference. As a bonus, it’s very well written.

Eight hundred plus words today, every last one a battle.

Following the deficit from yesterday, I revisited the two page synopsis first thing this morning. Nothing like writing deferred. A few plot points obsoleted themselves in the last month, so they were stricken. One point needed to be added. Continuity gaps between the manuscript and synopsis happen when I neglect a review for too long. I also caught several occurrences of a horrible character name, intended entirely as a placeholder – like the Working Title above the word count meter — until a proper one revealed itself. Only that baptism was two months back and still, there the name was in black and white…Diego Sterling. Oh, the horror.

After the synopsis, an idea hit me for a very small scene, which wrote itself quickly and in what I believe is the correct spot. Freewheeling like that is a rarity on this project, usually a lot more anguish and brainstorming drives this bus.

Then I wrote two pseudo-pages. Those who program might recognize a similar term, pseudo-code, which is where I nicked the idea. Pseudo-code are snippets that probably won’t compile, but demonstrate the basic flow structure of a script or module. Pseudo-pages are the same idea, just written in English ( or whatever language desired ). They are scattered, resemble mental scribbles, and sort of make sense to the author but not very much to a casual observer. I wanted to be clear on the last 15-20 pages and aware of the loose ends that need tying. The exercise forced both.

It looks like the ending will answer all but three points: one major, two minor. The big point everyone will notice, well, if I do the deed right, everyone will. The minor ones are more subtle. Not that the Easter eggs are for me, I’d just like more than one way into the next episode.

Then the real writing started. Once I caught sight of the finish line, that went pretty well. Another handy benefit of the pseudo-pages.