That thing I was writing about the actor and the single dad? Yeah. I made it through the first draft of that. I did that last week. And then I started trying to figure out exactly what Unleshed was about, aside from Cam and saving the planet. (It’s still about Cam saving the planet from a black worm, just for the record.) But I’ve got some scene ideas now, and I know a bit more about how the magic works in his world, so… I’ve got some great ideas in a file of notes for next month when NaNo starts. Woohoo!
That being said, Trouble Makers (the thing about the actor and the single dad) first draft came to about 52,000 words. In case you’re wondering, that’s 122 single-spaced pages where each scene starts on a new page. There are 31 scenes. That’s roughly half of what Nerdgasm came out to, and about 10K fewer words if comparing first drafts. I did have to add in two scenes that I’d previously missed in Trouble Makers though.
And… I can’t remember what I’ve said about Trouble Makers and Unleashed. Originally, Trouble Makers was going to be my next contribution to the Hearth and Forge series, but some things came up in Cam’s timeline, and now he’s next in Unleashed. Just for the record, Unleashed is not a love story. It’s a redemption arc, an anti-hero arc, a save-the-world arc. There is no romance in this book. Cam will have to wait a bit for that. (But that’s the thing that came up in his timeline that I needed to move this part up for — his romance needs to be timed with a couple other things going on, and that’s happening sooner than I’d originally timed Unleashed for.)
So now I have Unleashed tentatively scheduled for early fall 2018, and Trouble Makers scheduled for summer of 2019.
I’m glad I’ve finished drafting Trouble Makers before NaNoWrimo begins in a couple weeks. I didn’t want to leave that hanging while I wrote Unleashed for NaNo. The good news is: I’d spent enough time thinking about Trouble Makers and whether I even wanted to write it, that I had a pretty good idea about the story before I even began writing it. And thanks to lots of brainstorming sessions with bestie Misty Carlisle, I’ve managed to get a really good feel for Unleashed as well, so hopefully, that’ll go even faster.
Other than that, I’ve got about a thousand other things writing related to do. Like book covers and blurbs and more drafting on solo stuff and collaborative stuff and everything in between.
So here I leave you! I’ll keep you posted with all things writerly! And sometimes stuff that’s not so writerly.
-MG
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