Sitting on chapter 8 at about 62 pages and 21,999 words. The word count is slightly inflated because I have a completed chapter 9 in the same document that’s going to need some editing. I started writing this novel years ago and have been adding entire chapters from previous drafts where appropriate. Chapter 9 is the last of those earlier draft chapters. Sometime this week I will finish chapter 8 and insert chapter 9 and edit as required. That will also bring the page count out to the upper 70’s.
Progress on this initial draft is slow as other things are bidding on my time. But after the end of the year holidays I will bear down on this beast and get writing on a regular schedule. My goal is to complete the first draft by March. I will be about 1/4th finished come January. That means I must write 100 pages per month for three months. Oh boy.
I’ve been following my rough outline pretty closely so far. Sometimes I’ve had to invent new linking scenes to make the story flow better. When I do that I have to have some time to picture the new scenes. That extra think time slows down my writing. But has netted me some interesting new visuals and exchanges between characters. So it’s worth it in the end.
This novel will be much more complicated than Starstrikers. There are tons more subplots and minor characters. I have to be careful not to over stress the subplots and to keep focus on the main characters. At last count, I have 26 named characters in 60 pages of prose. Wow. It seems like a lot.