Took a break from my regular work schedule today to focus solely on Dark Heart. Because the target wordcount has been revised upwards, from 100,000 words to 125,000 words, and because I still want to get the first draft completed as close to my original deadline of March 31st as possible, I decided to try and put some extra elbow grease in and see how far I could get.

I started at 9am, and finished at 5pm. I took a couple of breaks, had a nice lunch, and also managed to finish A. Lee Martinez’s truely excellent The Automatic Detective. And by close of business I had 6148 words under the belt. That beat my old daily wordcount record by nearly 100%, so it’s say to say that I am currently enjoying a very smug cup of tea. Today I did good.

So Dark Heart, a rip-roaring tale of steam-flavoured adventure, is now at 87,501 words. This gives me 37,499 to go. Of course when I hit the 100k mark I spend some time time in quiet celebration, as this was my original finish point. Actually it’s still my finish point – the extra 25,000 words is a buffer to let me finish the story. And then later this year the fun begins of trying to cut the thing down to an acceptable size.

One interesting side-effect of being so immersed in writing and fiction is that I’ve found my mind picking apart plot and dialogue in other things. To take an example, last night I watched an episode of The Invasion, a rather good Doctor Who story from 1968. But as the story unfolded, I found myself analysing the dialogue, working out how the scriptwriter had got from one line to the next, almost second-guessing how conversations between characters ran. And today, finishing off The Automatic Detective, I could almost see the thought processes that led the plot down several twists and turns.

I’ve never seen, read, heard or absorbed fiction like this before, and I put it down to my new (and successful) habit of a high daily wordcount. If nothing else, this is some serious bootcamp training for my mind on the mechanics of writing and of story, and is (I hope) a strong sign that I’m learning some good lessons.

Time will tell if this pans out of course – I know for a fact that the section I’ve been working on is padded and will need a significant rewrite, but I won’t worry about that until June or July.

But maybe, just maybe, somewhere in those 125,000 words of waffle will be one good 100,000 word novel.

I shook my head. “Nope. We tend to keep things just on the normal side of paranormal back home. Easier to shoot at.”

“Any opportunities for past-it sergeants?”

“Not with a moustache like that, pal…”

The good news! Dark Heart has hit another milestone – today I crossed the 75,000-word mark. Which is pretty great, and firm proof that my new writing routine is right on the mark – 1600 words a day, Monday-Friday; 3000 words a day, Sat-Sun. That averages 2000 words a day. And ok, I don’t want to get too clinical about it, but it’s useful to know.

The bad news! This sucker isn’t going to be finished at 100,000 words. I had a feeling this would happen, but it’s actually a good kind of bad. I’d rather hit 100,000 words and keep on trucking, rather than find my story collapses in on itself well before the 100k mark. That would be a bad sign.

The solution? Well, I figure I can round this off at 125k, and have it finished not on March 31st, as planned, but April 10th. So I’ll be ten days out but have a considerably longer story.

So why did I decide on 100,000 words in the first place? Quite simply, the length of a debut genre novel is 80,000 – 100,000 words. Any longer than that and the book costs too much to print, pack and ship, and no publisher wants to take a chance like than on an unknown quantity. So 100,000 words it is – I chose the upper end because it’s a psychological milestone for myself, and I figured that as I’ve got three or four plotlines running this story that I’d need the extra leg room.

And now I need a full 25k more. But no problem – sure, it means I’m going to need to cull 25,000 words when I come to second draft, but I need to let the story finish naturally without rushing or forcing anything precisely so I can work out which are the good bits and which are the bits that need trimming.

In particular, I’ve been spending the last few days in the company of our Canadian airman, Scott Cleveland Faulkner, as he relates his side of the army camp attack to Grange and Megan, who rescue him from the crashed airship at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Now, Scott’s a talker, and he’s fun to be around, but I’m very aware that a lot of his story is going to have to go. It’s way, way too long, but the guy just won’t shut up. Even now, he’s standing inside the ruined temple, torch in hand, lecturing me about what he thinks of the ancient stonework. Come on, get to the action!
But that’s part of the exercise. If I decide that this is too much waffle and try to reign it it, Faulkner’s voice will become forced, and the condensation of the story will show in the prose and the reader will spot what I’ve done. So I need to forget about it, get the words down, regardless of length, and then once this section is finished I can then, and only then, work out which are the good bits and which are the unnecessary bits, and edit accordingly. Well, not for months of course (editing as you write is the road to gauranteed failure), but it’ll all be there, a sort of ‘director’s cut’ for me (the director) to pick and choose from as I wish.

So, 75,867 words down, 49,133 to go. Better see if I can sneak some more in tonight…