Ding Dong the Draft is DONE!
Yesterday I typed THE END for book two of my Aether Chronicles series.
~whew~
I was really afraid I wasn’t going to make it.
Well, technically I didn’t since my self-imposed goal was actually December 31, but Jan 2 isn’t too shabby.
91k in 2 months and 2 days isn’t shabby at all.
However, I’m not anywhere near done.
For the sake of vomiting out this draft and getting it on paper I glossed over some things….mostly the technical aspects and proper part names of the airships. I will be spending this week researching all the things I didn’t research and filling in all the blanks I left. I’ve never done that before and I’m not sure I liked doing it. Certainly it took me out of my comfort zone.
I also need to clean up all the errors. I am really bad about leaving out words, writing the wrong words, and the like.
Then, it’s off to a couple of betas.
Book 2 was tricky for me, mostly because I had to take it in a direction other than I’d originally intended and I really, really, really pantsed it. Usually I know how a book begins and ends and just have to pants the middle. Not so with this book…
It also didn’t end where I wanted to, and took some twists and turns I hadn’t planned on.
We’ll see how it all goes. Hopefully it’s for the better.
Now…back to filling in those blanks.
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Suzanne Lazear writes steampunk tales for teens. Her debut novel, INNOCENT DARKNESS, book one of The Aether Chronicles, releases August 2012 from Flux. Visit her personal blog for more adventures.
STEAMED! 
Congrats, Suzanne! Good luck with the revisions!
Congratulations Suzanne! 91k in 2 months! Amazing! Thanks for sharing the process with us.
Do you have any idea of the average amount of words you wrote each day? I ask that because I’m writing my first draft, and I’m trying to reach 40k by the end of the month, and it’s encouraging to know that you’ve did 45k in a month. 🙂
Good luck with the next part!
I work full time and an average of 2k a day is a really comfortable for me. But this is me, and I write fast. For me this word count gives me flexability on those days where the only time I get is at lunch and I make it up by writing more on the weekend.
Good strategy! I’m doing about 1,000, so I’ll try to push it a little.
I also work full time, and I’ve been trying to fit my writing time before I go to work in the mornings. I’m waking up at 5am and writing for an hour. I wasn’t getting anything done in the evenings, so that was a desperate measure. 🙂
At lunch, I usually do other things, so I hope the morning schedule works for me. At least, it’s summer here in Brazil and that helps a lot.
Thanks for the reply!
Congratulations!