Well, it's been done for a week, but I'm just getting around to blogging about it.
In fact I'm about 50% done the first run through on its way to becoming the First Draft. It looks like this book will require two rounds of edits and a trip through the grammar checker/spell checker before its fit to be called a First Draft. Let's say another week....
How did I get here? Let me show you...
The rough draft took 97 days to write. This was a record for me. I started as soon as I sent The Dromost Gate off to my critique partner and just didn't stop. I wrote every single day and averaged 1,532 words per day.
Is that a lot of words per day? Well... it depends. With a full time job and a busy kid it is. If I was a full time author I'd hope to double that number (at least). For someone writing on evenings, weekends, and days off, it's a pretty good number.
Right now The Emerald Gate weighs in at 148,650 words. This makes it the second longest book in the series. The Dromost Gate (First Draft) is a hefty 204,000, but will lose some weight in editing.
What's next? 1) Get Book 4 back from my critique partner and start working on the Second Draft. 2) Put Book 5 into the hands of my critique partner.
When will you see a book? September? Maybe? That's what I'm hoping for.
I'm super pleased with how well the writing went with The Emerald Gate. It has me very excited for my future writing projects -- of which I have many!
