As of last night, I’m just over 18,000 words in THE KORBADELL JOB. Every book I’ve ever written has thrown me a curveball during the first draft, and this one is no different.
The curve right now is that it’s too wordy. I have 37 chapters outlined, including a fast-moving action climax in the third act, and my target word count is around 80,000. (The first Fablehaven book was around 75,000 for reference.)
At this rate though, I’ll break 120,000 words by the end, and that makes me nervous. My intended publisher won’t want it at that length, especially because I’m not yet established as an author.
No matter how good I’ve gotten over the years, I have never cut 33% of the words from a draft. That’s a tall order for anyone.
I’m not going to change my writing speed, though. The most important thing to do with a first draft (for me anyway) is to finish it so I can fix it later. I’ve always preferred edits to drafting, because I feel like I’m better at diagnosing problems than I am at building things.
So I’ll allow myself to Hemingway this thing, get a crappy first draft out of the way, and then worry about making it right.
(With a chainsaw.)
DreadPennies: The Mind of Graham Bradley 