I have been writing furiously toward the goal I set of a finished book by October (see my goal setting post here), and took for granted that if I put in the hours I would get there. I have about fifteen days to the next milestone: a finished second draft, so I decided to check on my progress. You know, see how far I had to go (surely not much further, right?).

I planned to go about this by skimming over the draft, checking where the word count was distributed, and noting where the unwritten scenes would slot in. For each unwritten scene I would allocate a razor-wafer thin minimum of 1000 words. For the unwritten chapters I allocated a similarly translucent 5000 words. Then I set to counting them up.

There are three largely unwritten chapters, so that’s fifteen thousand straight away. Okay, 1000 a day. Very doable. No problemo.

There were 22 missing scenes. Twenty two thousand words. Add this to the chapters for a total of thirty seven thousand words, and we’re now entering Nanowrimo territory…

And that’s a conservative estimate of what’s required.

With half the time available.

And I’d thought I was almost finished.

I have only one more thing to say at this point.

*deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath*

BRING. IT. ON.

D.R.Sylvester