Hey, so I intended to do this this year, but waffled a bit. I just finished a 55,000 word novel in a little over the last month (no, I’m not kidding and more on that within the next few months, as ever, depending on editing and rewrites), add to that the entire manuscript and rewrites that led to the release of Changeling’s Crown in June, plus short stories you may or may not have seen yet, and I’ve pretty much exceeded the 100,000 word mark by November 1st. So I wasn’t sure I was up for another 50k so soon. Between that and a family crisis, I don’t know how much more energy I have for writing hard between now and the end of the year (again, why did they pick a holiday-laden month for this festa? Oh well…). Caitlin, though, has had her say and I’ve been working hard-ish on the fourth installment of the series, (tentatively, [for the last three months so probably writ in stone] entitled Mourning Dove Locket.) I’m still working out where MDL falls in Caitlin’s year, but I know it falls after DRAWING DOWN THE SHADES, (of course) and the plot and where we’re going so it shouldn’t be too hard, except that I’ve got all this other going on. 😦 I don’t know if I’ll finish it by the end of November, but at least I’ll have something more done on it than the whole last year.
Is 50,000 words in a month a good idea? Well, if you can’t do it any other way, maybe so. I have done it three times: the first time topped out at 90,000 words of a mess that, five years later, I still can’t fix. The second time, it went pretty well, though 50k did not serve to finish the book and it still remains unfinished and unpublished. The third time, (this last time) I once again did it on my own and since I have not had time to revise and edit it, we shall see. But I will say I feel much better about it than I did the results of the first two attempts. Time will tell. My hope for MDL is just that I get enough of a manuscript finished that I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere with it. So, Antique Magic fans, stay tuned, the next installment is a-coming. 🙂 And to those in Nano, this year, good luck and keep writing!
