I have committed book

[pbray]

Wrote the last scene of THE FINAL SACRIFICE this morning. Celebrated by jumping on the bike for a ride, hiring a painter to paint my house, then lunch at my favorite place. As soon as I post this, I'm heading off to the movie theater to hide from the heat.

The final totals are:
     Total manuscript: 103,250
     Words written since June 1st: 85,250.

As you can see, it's been a crazy couple of months. I don't think I could have kept on track if it wasn't for the great folks over at novel_in_90. I don't necessarily recommend the level of effort required to write this much in such a short period (especially for folks like myself who are fitting this in around a day job). But it can be done.

And I know that there's good writing in there. The scenes I wrote over the past few days are some of the best I've ever done.

And, to make my day even better, spotted a great rec for THE SEA CHANGE over at fireun's LJ. THE SEA CHANGE totally kicked my ass while I was writing it, so it's nice to see that the effort was worth it.

Comments

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Well I can't write a short story in three years :-)

Seriously, though, it helps that this was the final book of a trilogy, so I didn't have time-consuming worldbuilding, or basic research to slow me down.

Plus I was in deep dive mode, which meant that the book was the only thing going on--even when I surfaced to go to work, or attend to the bare necessities like grocery shopping, laundry, eating, sleeping, etc, I was still in the writing headspace.

I just can't sustain this level of effort month in, month out. We both know writers who can, who are writing 3, 4 or more books a year, but that's not me. I'm more like one of those Tour de France guys, who gears up for a month of hellish effort and then wants time off.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

And I'm more like one of those middle-aged guys stuffing himself on the couch when he should be out on the road.