Draft one/book one of the UF project is done. It’s not perfect; the plot has little tears in its seams, and the main character continues to feel not quite right. But it’s done! The long slog to draft two (and three, and … however many more it takes) will follow after NaNoWriMo.
For now, though: STATS!
Word tallies:
- NaNoWriMo 2014: 50,017 words
- personal FebNoWriMo = 36,947 words
- CampNoWriMo June = 12,131 words (this is what I actually logged on the site, but the file itself and the count sheet I used both have a decent variance from this number)
Final count: *113k words
*About 5k worth of bonus scenes aren’t included in the total, and another couple thousand scenes’ worth were taken out that will be moved to book two.
Timeline:
- conceptualized – Oct 2013
- CH1 written/submitted to NTSFW in Feb 2014
- made NaNoWriMo goal 2014 (50k words)
- came up short of secondary NaNo goal (goal was 40k in February)
- made CampNaNoWriMo goal (12k words)
- wrote another 20kish July – September
- 1st draft finish Sept. 24, 2015
- concept –> 1st draft = less than 2 years
- actual “drafting” phase (NaNo) –> 1st draft = less than 1 year
Just a refresher, it took ten (that’s right, TEN) years to finish the first draft of my epic fantasy, which weighed in at 128k words. That the UF took less than a year (depending on how you look at it) to draft, and is only 15k words short from that is kind of mind-boggling. If you had told me two or three years ago that I could draft a full novel in a year or less, I would have smiled and nodded, but inwardly been like Yeah right, there’s no way I can write that much in a year!
Finding a process that works to get the words down on the page makes all the difference.
Any burning questions about the drafting stage of this project? Any other numbers or stats you’d like to see? Want to know what song I played on repeat the most during this endeavor? Ask away!
Facets of Fantasy and Fangirling 