This has been the most lunchpail-y month I can remember when it comes to writing. I have my daily quota to hit on the novel, and parallel deadlines on a couple of screenplay re-writes, and for the last few weeks (other than the two days I lost to what I’m calling Pantstastrophe 2013), I have met those goals every day, Monday through Friday. And then, on nights and weekends, I’m usually working on other, more personal or lower-priority projects. Because I am insane.
The math nerd in me always finds a way to be useful when it comes to divvying up the big tasks. I don’t know exactly how long the first-draft manuscript is going to be for this novel, but it’s likely to land between 85- and 90,000 words. We just crossed 57,000 words so we’re trucking along. That estimate is based on the number of chapters left to write, and I generally know some of what’s happening in each chapter, but the length tends to vary in execution. And as often happens with me, the execution ends up being longer than the estimate – I usually over-estimate the amount of plot I will need.
That can muck up the equations. Because if I write 1,000 words, I’ve beaten my daily quota. But if those 1,000 words turn a 3,500-word chapter into a 4,000-word chapter, I’ve actually just made the whole book longer and I’m only 500 words closer to the end of it.
I saw that happening on the most recent chapter, and as the way through the muddle, I just used today to write the overage. A little Saturday overtime to keep us on-track. Makes sense.