Work-in-Progress Update

When time allows for it, I've been working on typing the second draft of my novel (novella?). Today was a good day for the project. I had a little over two hours and typed about 4000 words. Those typing skills are coming in handy! I'm revising as I go, although I have yet to make any huge revisions. I've been doing mostly minor changes - getting rid of overused words and phrases, changing words when necessary to emphasize meaning, verifying facts (as I was working in my notebook without the internet handy I'd write big notes in the margins saying "Check this!"), etc. I think there is an additional chapter I'll need to write and add near the end of the book.

I had no idea how many words I had written because I was writing longhand. That's both good and bad. I just wrote the story without concern of how many words I had, which is remarkably freeing. I really enjoyed the writing process. I'm not enjoying having to lug my laptop around so that I can type (although, yes, I am thankful to have a laptop because if I didn't have one, this project would never get done). The bad part of writing longhand is that I didn't know I had many words I wrote. I hit the 25,000 mark today (24, 995 but close enough). I don't think I will hit the 50,000 word mark that I was aiming for, but we shall see. So, it is quite possible that this is (only) a novella, but I'm okay with that. I enjoy reading shorter-length stories, so it makes sense that that is what I would write. I write what needs to be told of the story - to add words just to add them would be superfluous.

I'm enjoying how this story is coming out. I think that I have made some decent progress as a writer since my last work of fiction in terms of craft and understanding story structure, building interest, etc. which is good. I look forward to sharing the story with others and finding out what they think of it. But first . . . I need to finish typing. I'll keep you posted.