Update: progress is progressing

Well, that was a weekend, huh? I’m holding somewhat grimly to my determination never, ever to post about current events or especially politics, but wow, occasionally that does become something of a challenge. So if you wonder if I was too buried in fictional worlds to notice big events, no, not that buried.

But back to fictional worlds, and in the clear understanding that this particular blog is in fact going to remain oblivious to politics and current events —

So, lots of progress!

The past week did start slowly because … I may never have mentioned this, but a good while ago, my mother had shingles, and it lasted ten months and was highly unpleasant. I made a mental note then to get the shingles vaccine sometime after I turned fifty, and then of course I put it off and put it off and then last week I bumped into a guy who’s had shingles (so far) for four months and I thought Time to quit waiting. So I got the shingles vaccine, and in case you haven’t, let me add a public service message:

The current shingles vaccine is a two-shot series and it’s a lot better than the old vaccine. You don’t have to repeat it. Protection is better than the previous vaccine and also apparently permanent. So if you’re over fifty, let me just mention that for older people, shingles is often worse, often lasts a long time, is sometimes permanent, and is quite painful and unpleasant. Now that this much better vaccine is here, you might want to arrange to get vaccinated.

But! Either the second vaccine made me feel sort of crappy the next day or else just by random chance I felt sort of crappy the next day. I do get crashing headaches fairly often, and generally I grit my teeth and take a lot of Excedrin and move on through the day, but this past Wednesday, I was also experiencing muscle pain and general malaise, so I thought You know what, never mind, and picked up the most recent Penric novella. Review to follow, but that was a nice way to spend a couple of hours when I wasn’t going to get any work done anyway.

Also, even though the first part of last week was slow and I didn’t get a lot done, things started moving much better on Friday as, for the first time since I picked up Silver Circle at the beginning of June, I hit “flow” rather than slogging forward. I don’t know why; lots of exciting things have been happening all the way along, but maybe I’d just been working on it long enough to get this story back into the foreground. Something else that helps is that I’ve figured out what I’m actually doing with the epilogue and I’m looking forward to that, so that’s pulling me forward.

Anyway, moving from the slog-forward feeling to the in-flow feeling has kicked up writing speed and (obviously) made writing a lot more enjoyable.

Questions you might well ask:

1) So, how many chapters did you need to do when you picked up Silver Circle in June?

Eight or so.

2) So, at this point, about how many chapters do you still need to do?

Eight. Or so.

What keeps happening is that I write a chapter, break it in half, move the first half back a bit, and renumber the rest of the chapters. OR, I suddenly get a neat idea, chuckle to myself, and write an unexpected short chapter. Then I drop that into place and renumber the rest of the chapters. At the beginning of June, I had 48 chapters, of which all but eight or so were finished. Not just the final eight needed to be written, either, but several chapters in the middle plus six or so at the end. Plus the epilogue.

Now, I have 54 chapters, of which the final seven plus the epilogue remain.

I’m really, really glad that I have filled in some earlier chapters, because holes in the middle are unaesthetic and those holes were bugging me.

3) How many words have you written since the beginning of June?

About 60,000. A little more.

4) About how many words do you expect still lie ahead?

About 30,000. Probably a little more.

5) How are you making that estimate?

About ten-fifteen pages per chapter except the penultimate chapter will be long for sure, so call that 30, equals about 95 pages, round up to 100, which is about 30,000 words, give or take.

6) It’ll probably go longer, right?

Probably, but I’m now hitting 4000 words per day, not 2000, so it doesn’t matter. As long as I keep anything close to that pace, I should finish by the end of the month, or very nearly. At 4000 words per day, that would be 60,000 words by the end of the month, and I’m not likely to have underestimated the final length by THAT much.

7) How long do you think the story will wind up?

I’m at 172,000 words as of this morning, so just about 300,000 total, probably. Although I expect to do some trimming, I don’t expect to do a lot of trimming. That’s because I’ve already done some and because most chapters are pretty much chock-full of action. But it’s fine if it does go over. If both books are 150,000 words, that’s fine. If they’re 175,000 words each, that’s fine, though I’ll be surprised if that happens. Regardless, I’m not concerned about it.

8) Has anybody died yet?

Yes.

9) AAAGH! WHO?

That’d be telling. Sorry.

10) Is anybody ELSE going to die?

I don’t know. I’m a discovery writer, remember? I won’t be sure till I’m at the end.

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