I broke 140,000 words tonight, and am well into the wrap-up of The Wizard of Suomen. I hit a slow spot for a few days, but I think the things that I needed sorted out in my head are good now, so I’m hoping to finish up the first draft within the next few weeks here. I think my tentative estimate of a 140K-150K word count in total for this first draft was fairly accurate.
Home stretch.
~Ethelinda
Merry Christmas!
As a present to myself (and to all of you!) I wrote 7600 words in the last three days and just topped 130K in total. Just a little bit more to go to get through the major plot events, and then it should be downhill into the wrap-up. 😀
~Ethelinda
I broke 120,000 words last week.
The end is in sight now, both story-wise, and in the sense that I can actually see what remains of my outline all at once on a single page. This is slightly terrifying (the ever-present worry that it won’t be good/interesting/dramatic enough), and also very motivating, because I’m definitely going to finish this. There will be a lot of work to do then, since this is just a first draft, but that thought usually helps me get past the worries; it doesn’t have to be perfect now, and in fact it can’t be. But it can get better, once I have a full first draft and can go back with a full story to edit and revise.
Mostly, I’m just glad that I’ve been able to make so much progress in just a few months. I’ve found this post from Patricia Wrede to be helpful in my thinking on that regard. She comments:
“Writing takes time. Also some thought and effort, but mainly the whole “butt in chair, fingers on keyboard” thing. Regardless of whether you are an intuitive writer or an analytical one, a plodder or a sprinter, actual words-on-paper/pixels has to happen, and that takes time.”
I really love that “butt in chair, fingers on keyboard” quote, because that’s what I’ve managed to do this year, and that is what has gotten me where I am now. It’ll take a lot more of that, and some “butt in chair, pen on paper” time too, before I’ll consider The Wizard of Suomen an actual finished, polished novel, but having gotten this far makes me confident that I can go the rest of the way. That whole post from Ms. Wrede is inspiring on this point actually, because I’m not just sitting back and waiting for a perfect, “blockbuster” novel to magically appear in my head. Putting in the time and effort takes that time and effort…but it also leaves you much more certain that you are going to get where you want/need to go with something.
I think I can now tentatively estimate that the first draft will be 140K-150K words. Tentatively. Where it will sit after the major edits that need to happen, I have no idea.
Thanks again to everyone who is reading and liking or commenting! It’s my goal to have an even better story for you by the time I get around to a final version, so stay tuned! 🙂
~Ethelinda
Sometimes, I write something in TWoS, and then a few weeks later my brain goes, “Hey, remember that thing you wrote back in scene X? That works really perfectly with Y that needs to happen now.”
And I go, “Hot damn” and dance around a little bit in excitement.
Yay for (un)intended(?) connections!
~Ethelinda
I just broke 100,000 words on The Wizard of Suomen.
Still a ways to go yet, but that’s a nice milestone to have reached! 😀
~Ethelinda
I just finished up what will be part two of TWoS.
Just over 94,500 words for the whole story thus far.
Part three might end up being a bit shorter than the other two, though I’m not quite sure yet. Part two still needs some work as I go along and post it, but it’s a solid draft.
It feels really, really good to be making so much progress on this. I’m excited about this story, and how good it will (hopefully!) be once I’m all done.
~Ethelinda
So, it seems that I’ve gained quite a few followers over the last few weeks and months! Welcome! I don’t know how many of you are following my writing or not, but thanks for the interest. 🙂
For anyone who is interested in following my current story, The Wizard of Suomen, you can find links to all the chapters on the “Land of Winds: The Wizard of Suomen” page. The chapters are each linked to the previous and following chapters within each post as well.
Here’s a summary of the story:
The Wizard of Suomen follows Ilari Virtanen, a powerful magic-user in a land prejudiced against magic, as he attempts to defend his country from the aggression of a neighboring country with many strong magic-users. Throughout a long, cold Suomilen winter, faced with new and terrible magic from enemies getting ever closer to home, Ilari struggles to protect his land with few allies and opposition seemingly on all sides. With Suomen’s King making what seem to be an increasingly unwise series of decisions about the war, the soldiers, statesmen and courtiers around Ilari must make their own choices about where the real danger to Suomen lies. Can the Wizard of Suomen overcome misunderstanding, prejudice and treachery in time to save not only himself, but everything that he cares about?
Come find out which way the Winds will blow….
~Ethelinda
(Maybe I’ll do a monthly writing summary, just to further motivate myself.)
Written in August:
27,121 words – The Wizard of Suomen
I do sometimes work on my other stories/writing projects as well, which I’ll indicate in the future, but this past month I really focused on TWoS – obviously a productive choice! 🙂
~Ethelinda
Since I sat down to write last Saturday evening, I have written almost 15,000 words of The Wizard of Suomen; the total word count is now over 70,000. It’s unlikely I’ll have this good a week again for awhile, but it feels wonderful to have made such solid progress.
I’ve got the whole rest of the second part of the story well laid-out in my head now, so I should be able to write that pretty steadily, even if I don’t manage to be quite this prolific! Overall, the story breaks up into roughly three parts, at least in my head. (Chapter 14, as I post it here, will finish out what I think of as part one, in case anyone is wondering.)
Also, this week’s progress means I’ve got a much better “lead” between where I’m posting and where I’m writing, so the chance that I’ll have to switch to posting chapters every other week is greatly lessened.
I hope everyone who’s reading this is enjoying it, and excited about what’s coming up! I definitely am. 🙂
~Ethelinda
What feels even better than having written 10,000+ words this week?
Remembering that it’s only (very early on) Wednesday!
😀
~Ethelinda
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