Well, okay, technically as of the time of this post I have over four hours left before the deadline has officially passed. But anyway, I finished my novel. Or rather, that is, I finished the first draft... but the revisions can wait a bit.
Final word count: 103,429. Which is somewhat over what I had hoped, but probably still manageable. I've already mentioned I'm chopping off the entire first chapter, which will cut the word count by a little over two thousand, and while there are a few details I do plan to add in the revisions, the pruning of my first-draft verbosity will almost surely mean significantly more words lost than gained even aside from that amputated first chapter. So I'm fairly confident that my final draft will come in under 100,000 words. Not a short novel, but not excessively long; according to various sources I've looked at online, the best word count for a fantasy novel for a first time author seems to be between 90,000 to 100,000 words or so, and the final draft of Ichor should fall comfortably in that range. (And definitely a far more reasonable word count than the ponderous 170,000+ words of my previous novel, which with every passing day I am increasingly unsurprised that I was unable to find an agent for.)
Although I'd had the ending planned out in considerable detail from the beginning (which is the way I usually like to work; it's paid off for me at 24-Hour Comics Day, too), the manner in which the main story ended almost necessitated a bit of an epilogue, to tie things up neatly. And I had no idea till today what that epilogue was going to entail. What it did end up entailing I definitely hadn't planned ahead of time, involving two characters getting together in a relationship that I hadn't previously foreseen getting together at all. But hey, it worked. And I'm fairly happy with how it all turned out.
So, with the first draft finished, I now have the second draft to worry about. And the third. And... well, however many it takes till I feel comfortable calling it done.
But not today. And not tomorrow, either. I'll worry about those later.
For the moment... I think I can afford to take a bit of a break.
Hi Zachary!
ReplyDeleteSorry to comment on your post, but I couldn't find an email addy for you. On an email loop going around about EE's upcoming bookchat, a few of the minions mentioned how bad they feel that you wound up being the only one to show up at the last one and hope that doesn't discourage you from trying again. So yes, that was noticed and people remembered you for it :o).
I'm not sure yet whether I'll be at the chat, but we all do hope you'll come. The book is HOLES (and having seen the movie counts, too, this time!).