How Goes the WIP, 14th May?

On By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Progress

To update you, I last posted about the WIP on 29th April. The word count was then 77,854. Subsequently, the Lawn Bowls season began. I don’t play, but my darling wife’s a keen team member of her local club and, as she doesn’t drive, I’m her taxi for the games. It can be a little disruptive to our generally ordered life, but she gets so much pleasure from the game, and it helps keep her active, along with our daily walks in the forest.

So, there’s the excuse. Now for the current situation with the new book. Word count has reached 84,141. And the first draft is now complete. That doesn’t really mean an awful lot for a pantster, as there’s at least as much work to be done in the initial edit as there is in the creation.

I’m leaving the writing aspect for a couple of weeks. I like to let the words mature on their own before I return to take control. And I’ll continue to add to the research I’ll need so I can add some pertinent details to the story. There’s little description as it stands at present, so that also will be dealt with in that first meaty edit. The important thing for me as a pantster is that the story is now in written.

Oddly, for an edit, the book will inevitably grow rather than diminish. We pantsters tend to build the skeleton in that first draft and then flesh it out in the first edit. I enjoy that part of the process almost as much as the initial creation of the tale. So, I’ll be back with you once I’ve started that process.

Meantime, I have more blog posts to complete and stories and poems to enter in contests and submit to various paper and online publications, so I’ll not be too idle.

And, quite importantly, I must spend some time tidying my study so I can actually find things when I search for them! When I’m creating, many other aspects get left for later. Well, later is now, so these things now need dealing with. Catch you soon!

6 thoughts on “How Goes the WIP, 14th May?”

  1. Amazing to have finished your first draft in such a short amount of time, however panstery you say it is. I’m guessing there was actually a lot of thought went into this during your year of research, so you probably had a rough outline in your head to start with?

    I do agree with you about editing being the most enjoyable part. I find getting the initial draft out a bit like pulling teeth, but once it’s there, it’s like the clay from which you can model the pot. Like you as well, I have found my 2nd draft much longer than the first, as I add all sorts of detail based on how the plot has panned out and also on more research and character sketching. This ends up being a bit bloated, so the next edit (or 5!) is about shaping and cutting and more cutting until there are no extraneous words, ideally, although there is always more if you look

    Good luck with it all, and enjoy your well earned break 🙂

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    1. It’s been an odd first draft, this one, Penny. I started out last year, following extensive research, but discovered I was taking a route that simply wouldn’t work. I left it for a while, then started again, following even more research. The whole process has been interrupted by various events and interruptions over which I had little or no control, so I’m pleased to have the skeleton finally formed. It’s a little hunch-backed at present, but some careful surgery and a generous application of flesh should disguise those issues. It’s entirely different from anything else I’ve written. And, once it’s completed, I suspect it will be a work of Marmite. I just hope more people like it than hate it!
      Once that first, vital, edit is done, I will, like you, probably indulge in another half-dozen to reduce the inevitable bloat and refine the meaning, rhythm, and moods of the piece.
      Now, however, I’m going to look at some short works in prose and poetry, to keep that word-wrangler who lives inside me busy.

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