Sunday, April 17, 2011

Home stretch.

It's hard to believe that finally, after all this time, I'm in the home stretch. I have fewer than 20,000 words to write in order to reach my goal word count. I don't think that will be too difficult. I've had a couple writing sessions lately during which I've sat there and written a thousand words in an hour. If I keep up that pace, it's just 20 more hours, or 20 more writing sessions, until I can consider the first draft finished. It hardly seems real.

I want to finish this sucker, print it out, and get red all over it. I want red everywhere that needs tightening, modification, additional words and thoughts, a better word or thought than the one that's already written there, etc. I love to edit, and I've been resisting the temptation to do so the whole time I've been writing the book. I keep having to give myself this anti-editing pep talk: "Bellamy, you remember the last time you started editing a story. You ended up with nothing left of it because you were really hard on yourself. So don't look back, and don't hit the delete key; move forward and write, and save it all, and then when it's all done--yes, all--you can wield that red pen. But only when it's time."

Soon it will be time.

I can't say how long it'll take me to finish. It could be weeks, or it could be months. And it doesn't matter to me, as long as at the end of this story--when it's all written and edited--it feels right.

These days I've been waking up with the characters talking in my head again. Sasha and Riley have full conversations lately in between my ears, and in so doing, they nudge me to get up and write. And so I shall.

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