Okay, before everyone gets crazy excited, no, I have not finished the first draft. That remains a work in progress. But I figured you guys deserved an update after many months of silence, so here it is:
Cerulean Bound has officially crested the 70k words mark!
Now, what does this mean for the book itself?
I am about halfway through the story at this point, which means the book is on track to be about 140k words long. That, of course, would be the word count for the first draft. After extensive editing and chopping and revising, that number will hopefully be down in the 90-100k words range. So there’s still a while to go before the book is ready for eyes other than mine to see it.
On the upside, 70k words in and going strong! B&B season is gradually coming to a close, and NaNoWriMo starts in a few days, so I’m hoping to bang out the rest of the first draft by early December. Then the editing begins.
My very tentative hope is to get the book out next year. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect it in the spring — probably more like the fall — but miracles can always happen, right?
So there’s the update! Happy Halloween to everyone, and if you’re going to attempt NaNo this year, happy writing!
Unrelated media of the day:
Michelle Proulx - Author 
Congrats! Also, that millipede shouldn’t be so smug. 😛 Happy Halloween in advance.
Thanks 😀 May your Halloween be spoooooooooooky!
Just what I was thinking. Those little legs look pretty short and useless for anything but moving the millipede from point A to B.
Not to mention how much he’ll have to spend on gloves.
Or socks! 🙂
Always forget those
70K sounds pretty good. I’ve made a bare beginning (4K words) on a sequel to the HW Series. Happy Halloween to you in spooky Nova Scotia! (It is spooky, isn’t it?)
For me, writing the beginning of a story has always been the easy part. It’s once I get 20-30k words in and I start approaching the meat of the story that I get alarmed I’m not doing the story justice and lose faith in myself. So 70k words means I’ve once again managed to push through the self-doubt and am now attempting to victoriously struggle out the other side 🙂
Wow! 2 books down and 70k words on the third. This old procrastinator has about 80% of each of 3 novels written. Doing well! (Truth for you, sarcasm for me!)
Lol. Well, 80% of three novels is better than 0%, I guess? I feel your pain — I have about seven different books in various states of construction, but it’s so hard to do that final push and actually get them finished. If I didn’t have people waiting on book 3, it would take me another five or six years to finish in all likelihood.
Story of our lives! Get it? 😉
Hahaha yes and I love it
Yay you! That’s wonderful news 😀
Yay!!! I’m so excited to finish writing the first draft … and I live in soul-crushing dread of editing the first draft.
Good luck. Almost finished with the sequel – really enjoying it.
That’s awesome to hear! Well, I’ll do my best to make the third one enjoyable too 🙂