25.7k/65k (estimated)

Not bad for a week of work.

I’m trying something new with this draft: crank it out as fast as possible and worry about the details later.

Okay, it’s not entirely new. I’ve done it before. Hell, it’s how I wrote the original GNW. But I’ve been taking on various projects over the last few years and the paid work always comes first, which means I tend to work on my own ideas in fits and starts. Some authors work well in that way; I…don’t. I want to get the entire thing out on the page and then finesse it into shape afterward. If I linger too long on anything it starts to go bad. I don’t lose interest — it’s worse than that.

I start to hate it.

I’m pretty sure most authors go through a phase where they hate what they’re working on. I will go through it myself regardless of how fast I write or how good the first draft is. But I have a unique sort of work loathing that pops up when I hang out with characters for longer than I should. Familiarity breeding contempt, I guess.

Anyway, Vibeke and the gang are trying to weasel their way out of the latest situation. I have a general outline I’m following, but leaving myself wriggle room in case exciting ideas spring up. I’ve also had a little help — this will be the second or third iteration of book three, which means I do have a lot of previous material to draw on if it’s suitable. So far, a good amount of it has managed to work. So no, that 27k isn’t entirely new verbiage.

My plan at the moment is bang through the first draft, then set it aside to percolate while I do a heavy revision on another zombie adventure (yes) in the pipeline, as well as put the final edits on a new serial coming out this summer, if all goes well. Then it’s back to Grave3 for the heavy revision, and eventually it would be nice to get the thing out this year.

Maybe.

We’ll see.

As we’ve seen before, I’m quite good at screwing things up. 🙂