At 2:28 PM EST, I wrote the last line of the book. The word count meter for the manuscript will remain in the sidebar until copies reach the pre-submit readers for feedback. Only after implementing the revisions and suggestions, will it reach the 100 percent mark. The meter will return remain in place for one day to reflect that milestone, and then the clock returns to zero; a new project begins.

A couple of thoughts for the day:
1) Writing another novel is possible, even starting a new one as soon as the next few weeks. I’m tired, but not burned out.
2) It’s time for a view bigger than the characters I’ve known for the last thirteen months. While the lessons they taught me were invaluable, looking at the world through another set of eyes is a welcome challenge.
3) Still want that bottle of Tanqueray, but I’m too tired to drink it. Maybe Thursday or Friday.

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.