Progress on my Novel: November 30

Wow! I knew when I restarted this blog that I wasn't going to be writing every day, but I wrote much less in November than I imagined I would.

It's not that there isn't anything to write about. Just yesterday, in fact, there were the firings of Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor, more ICBM tests from North Korea, a President who decries fake news tweeting three untrue, racist videos, a Republican plan to cut taxes (and simultaneously increase the national debt), and the ongoing net neutrality battle. That's fodder for a week's worth of blog posts right there!

No, it's not that I'm lacking anything to write about; it's that I planned to use this blog as a sort of writing practice or a warm up before working on my novel, and so far that hasn't really been an issue. I'm only writing today, in fact, because I said last month that I'd write an update on the last day of each month.

This time last month I was still in the pre-writing phase, frustrated that I was stuck on a year 2017-2073 timeline, which I originally thought would be a page and have maybe 12-15 bulleted items on it, but on October 31 had 43 bulleted items and still had a long way to go. I guessed that I'd finish it by November 7 and then take another week to write an outline, hoping to start actually writing the novel by November 15.

In the end, though, I didn't finish the timeline itself until mid-November, and my 12-15 bulleted item list ended up being 187 bulleted items, each dated to the day. The total document is 22 single spaced pages and just short of 12,000 words long. I'm not complaining, though. The process was absolutely essential, and some of the plot points that were hazy in my head have gelled now thanks to this process. Probably more than half of what is mentioned in that document will never make it in to the novel, but that's okay: If the novel ever actually gets published and becomes successful, there's material there for two or three prequel novels.

I then created an outline for the events in the novel. As expected, that took me about a week, and it is much briefer than the timeline. The outline is four pages total, and it's only about 1,800 words. It's not even in complete sentences.

I started actually writing the novel on November 21. My goal is to write six days a week and to write at a pace of at least 1,000 words per day. I have managed to do that, and yesterday I finished chapter two of the novel, which I'm guessing--based on my outline--will be 26 chapters in length (though I may, in the end, find a chapter much longer than I was anticipating and need to split it, or I might find a need to combine two chapters). In any event, with two chapters written at about 4,500 words each, the novel should end up about 117,000 words in length. Which is--I've read--close to the maximum length a first time author's novel should be. A 117,000 word novel is about 390 pages in length. I may have some cutting to do.

Anyway, that's where I am.