Wordcount Wednesday

Let me tell you a little story about brainstorming my current work-in-progress, Book #1 of the Iron Staff Trilogy.

I’m a plot-first writer, which means that I almost always come up with the story first (imagine that). I’m also an outliner, meaning I want to try to work out as much of the story as I can (beginning, middle, and ending) before I start putting words on the virtual page.

Actually, I like to call my process of writing “stepping stone writing.” When I’m plotting out my story, I like to figure out at least a half dozen major “moments” in my story and get them arranged. Then, once I know where those are, I kind of make up the rest as I go along.

Well, when I was planning this story, I was chugging along when I had a major epiphany. I saw a moment in my mind’s eye, clear as anything, unspooling like I was watching it in a movie.

To put it bluntly, it freaked the bajeezus out of me. And I immediately knew I had to put it in my story and it got me so excited to write the story, I just had to dive in.

Well, after who knows how many weeks of working on this thing, I finally hit that moment. The freaky bajeezus moment is in the first draft.

And, truth be told, I’m a little disappointed in it. I’m not sure if it turned out the way I wanted it to.

But hey, that’s okay. This is still a first draft and I can always tweak it, fix it, or just plain rewrite it so it’s right.

I also hit a major milestone in terms of wordcount. At present, this book is at 75,030 words.

This actually has me a little worried still. I originally envisioned my freaky bajeezus moment as the halfway point of this story. That means I could still have another 75,000 words to go on this monster.

Now I don’t think that’s actually the case. By my reckoning, I’m on Chapter 33 out of 45 possible chapters. That’s a rough estimate on my part in terms of what I need to finish this story. With any luck, I’ll be able to get the story done at around the 100k mark and then edit it down from there.

But still, it’s good to be past that stepping stone. Onward down the stream!