71,500 words, and "The Crown of Pluto" is officially done in draft! Granted, the story ran a good 25,000 words longer than I meant for it to go, and as a result, I suspect that I've got quite a bit of re-writing in my future, but...
In the course of 9+ years of commuting by train, I've now written TWO complete, full-length novels, four graphic novels, a half-dozen or so unconnected short stories, and about a million blog posts. At the end of the day, this is best argument I have in favor of public transportation.
*whew*
Who's looking for something to read?
Heh. Just kidding.
I've gotta let the thing sit for a month, rest a little, and then give it at least one re-write. And then I've gotta go back through the other stories in the book, add back in all the thematic things I developed writing "Pluto", and basically clean it at all up, but none if that matters right now.
Hooray! My story is told!
***
EDIT: Now that I've got it all cut together, the complete first draft came out to 190 pages, 72,142 words.
I got very close to spinning this thing out into its own self-contained novel, but right now, I'm inordinately pleased with the way the ending came out. It took me some time, but I think I played off all the angles set up in the other stories, and I feel good about where we've left everyone.
Guess we'll see if that's true once the test-readers get a shot at it.
Congrats on completing the draft.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tony.
DeleteI may yet write one more little part, an Epilogue called "Rags to Riches to Rags Again." The ideas been bouncing around in my head for a day or two, and then I outlined it on my phone while I was on the subway yesterday.