Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

Words: 9,947.
Total words: 25,207.
Reason for stopping: through with chapter seven, time to send off to the Machete Squad for review.
Music: an astonishing amount of modern country.
The cats: Lilly, drawer; Thomas, floor; Alice, top of the front room cat tree.

I'm finally working on Midnight Blue-Light Special again! Hooray! Not only that, but I'm making good progress; given that the first book was roughly 100k, I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, and most of the really important pieces have been put into position, ready for me to start knocking them over. I'm totally excited, and also deeply relieved, since I want to be mostly, if not entirely, finished by the time Discount Armageddon actually hits shelves. I am a simple soul.

The mouse exaltation of the day is a pretty straightforward one: "CHEESE AND CAKE!" It's not as common in the actual text as you might think, despite it being a major part of their religion, because they don't need to say it all the time. This chunk also featured Istas, which always makes me happy. She's a fun girl.

I really, really want to buy myself a few "free days" (days where I have already written so far ahead of target word count that I can do other things), so that I can write the next two Jonathan and Franny stories, "Hell of a Ride" and "Loch and Key." The first John and Fran story will be appearing in the anthology Westward Weird, coming out in January.

Cheese! And! Cake!

Words: 11,559.
Total words: 100,361.
Reason for stopping: I can no longer convince my eyes to focus, which means stopping time.
Music: lots of country and goth.
The cats: Lilly, in a loaf on the bed; Alice, in a loaf on the floor; Thomas, prowling around the hall.

As I work, I am slowly—very slowly, especially for me—dealing with the edits from my Machete Squad. The fact that I'm within 10,000 words of the projected end of the book means that I will soon be able to take a day and process the remaining edits, which will be nice. I really want to get the first draft out of the way, so that we can bend to the more difficult job of beating said first draft into something resembling shape.

This last month has been absolutely grueling. Since Blackout ran so far over, I have been forcing myself to make word count every day, even when I have edits to crunch, because I need those words to be on the page where they can be corrected more than I need to have the space to move at my usual pace. Once I finish draft one, things can return to something a little closer to normal. I can see some of the holes that currently exist in the book, the places where I'm going to need to build some things up and tear other things down. Now all I need to do is get there.

I need a nap. Goodnight, moon.

Words: 17,558.
Total words: 71,958.
Reason for stopping: chapter seventeen is done, and I need to pack for Seattle.
Music: mostly Great Big Sea and random country.
The cats: Alice, sneering at the contents of her food dish; others, unknown.

So, um. That happened.

We've hit the all-important middle section of the book, where I throw things at the wall just as fast as I possibly can, and then go back to sculpt and scrub them until they resemble something that's actually shaped like the story I want to tell. It's a lot of "three steps forward, two steps back," but every step takes me a little closer to my eventual victory over the troublesome patches in the text. It's awesome.

Also, now that I'm over 70,000 words, I can actually start booking one night a week to work on Midnight Blue-Light Special, the sequel to Discount Armageddon, and a book I've been hugely looking forward to writing. So there's that. I love Toby, and I love InCryptid, and a good mix of them turns out to be an excellent way of keeping myself sane.

It's harder to write these posts than it used to be, because so many people are wonderfully, miraculously invested in this series, and I don't want to give more spoilers than I absolutely have to. But I'm super-happy with how Ashes of Honor is coming together, and I think you will be, too.

Yay.

Words: 9,843.
Total words: 48,180.
Reason for stopping: I have finished chapter twelve. Now is the time of sleeping.
Music: mostly Pink, Dar Williams, and Ludo. Still.
The cats: Alice, demanding I stop typing and love her. Others, unknown.

...well, that happened. And yes, the temptation to write just another two hundred words and break the 10k barrier was very strong. I have suppressed it by reminding the little voice that asks for such things that we're on track to break 50k on Wednesday (I get Tuesday nights off), and that's pretty damn awesome. Ashes of Honor is projected to be "average length" for a Toby book, which means between 101,000 and 112,000 words. Probably somewhere in the middle. So hey, I have almost half a book! Woo-hoo!

In the text, I can say without spoilers that Toby and Quentin have reached Tamed Lightning, and everything is going about as well as can be expected at this stage in a Toby book. So I get to have April O'Leary-flavored goodness for at least five minutes before everything goes to hell.

Finding the balance between "look, if you're reading book six in the series, I really hope you've read the first five" and "previously, on October..." is fascinating, and incredibly difficult. Every book, I get people who complain that there's too much back story, and people who complain that there's not enough; I have to find the ragged edge between them and skate along it like my life depends on it. I think I'm getting better at it, but there's so much background now that it's still occasionally very hard.

I'm making my goals; the book is moving along at a decent clip; while there will doubtless be extensive rewrites and at least one crying jag, I expect to have a finished first draft by the end of October.

Yay.

Words: 8,256.
Total words: 25,668.
Reason for stopping: I have finished chapter seven, and need to finish writing an essay.
Music: mostly Pink, Dar Williams, and Ludo.
The cats: all sacked out on the bed like fuzzy potatoes.

I am...working. I am making progress and I am working and by the standard length of a Toby book (roughly 100,000 to 110,000 words, give or take a chapter), I broke 25% of this book today. Which is incredible.

To be honest, finishing Blackout just killed me. It racked me up one side and down the other, and it's not really over yet; I'm still waiting on the editorial letter from The Other Editor, at which point, the Machete Squad gets to attack the manuscript again while I make the changes he feels are necessary (and he's going to be right, because he's always been right so far, and I trust him, which is wonderful). I was terrified going back into Ashes of Honor. What if I couldn't find my footing? What if I couldn't figure out where I stood?

I didn't need to be afraid. Toby is as natural to me as breathing at this point, and while her stories aren't always easy (on either one of us), they're familiar territory. I like it in her world. I can stay there for as long as I need to. It's comfortable, and it's mine, and it's one of my imagination's true homes.

I think this one is going to be just fine.

Date started: September 14th, 2010.
Date finished: July 10th, 2011.

Total words: 165,481.
Total pages: 605.
Total chapters: Forty.

Well, that's that. It's done. Three books. More than three years. My first finished series. And while this is only the first draft, it will go quickly through the next few cycles, becoming a finished book in the time it takes to blink. And then it will be over.

Mira Grant was born after this series. Newsflesh became Feed; a standalone became a trilogy; "that zombie novel Seanan keeps threatening to write" became the book that would get me nominated for a Hugo award. The Masons and their friends and their enemies and the science and the politics and the zombies, it all became...

It became...

It became so much bigger than I ever dreamed it was going to become. I am so grateful. I am so sad that it's over.

Alive or dead, the truth won't rest.

Rise up while you can.

Words: 7,639.
Total words: 142,065.
Estimated words remaining: 8,000.
Reason for stopping: I'm tired, and it's time for bed.
Music: really, really LOUD rock and roll.
Cats: Alice, eating; Lilly, loafing on the bed; Thomas, eating

On an average work night, I write between 2,000 and 4,000 words, along with assorted edits, emails, and the rest.

I have an estimated 8,000 words to go in this book. That is, essentially, two days of work. Now, I'm not actually going to finish Blackout on Wednesday; I have edits to process, and the first draft will almost certainly run 3,000 to 8,000 words long, giving me lots of room to go back and cut things that are repetitive or turn out not to be necessary. But I'll hit the point where everything becomes gravy sometime this week. Even with the event this weekend, even with Amy and Wes showing up on Friday, I'm almost there.

It's a weird feeling, sort of pride and terror all tangled up together. A lot of people are reserving judgement on the trilogy as a whole based on this book. If it's not good, they're going to be disappointed in me. So I have to stick this landing like it's the fucking Olympics, and I need to do it with style and grace. It's scary. It's amazing. It's the reason I write books, rather than sticking with stories that come out quicker and clearer and don't bleed on my floor quite as much.

We're almost there.

Words: 5,544.
Total words: 110,825.
Estimated words remaining: 35,000.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter twenty-four. I now need to get ready for a wedding.
Music: ALL THE LUDO. I seriously have all four albums on loop.
Cats: Alice, sulking by the food dish; Lilly, curled on the bed; Thomas, ditto.

So I set really ambitious word count goals for Friday and Saturday (despite new Doctor Who) in order to be able to take today off and attend a friend's wedding. Only it turns out I don't have to leave for the wedding for another hour, and I got up at seven o'clock this morning, and...

Yeah.

On the plus side, I'm pretty sure this puts me two days ahead on my word count goal, which means I can book tomorrow afternoon for 2,000-4,000 words on "Rat-Catcher." I'm totally going to pretend I did that on purpose, yo. I am ENDLESSLY ORGANIZED. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Now I'm going to put on pants, send the newest chapters off to the machete squad for review and abuse, and take a walk before it's time to get moving.

Happy Zombie Day, everybody!

Words: 4,093.
Total words: 89,836.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter eighteen. I require ice cream and Fringe.
Music: Prepare the Preparation, by Ludo.
Cats: Alice, complaining about how I NEVER FEED HER EVER; Thomas, patrolling the shelves; Lilly, asleep on the cat tree.

...okay, so I admit it: stopping myself at a natural stopping point, rather than trying to push it and cross 90,000 words tonight? Kinda hard. I sort of feel like I deserve a cookie, or, barring that, some mint cookie ice cream. Which is why I'm going to go and have some mint cookie ice cream now.

It's increasingly hard to talk about what's going on, because everything is a spoiler. So I just flail and gibber a lot, which works well for me, overall. Soon, the book will be done, and then the Machete Squad can hack it to bits before The Agent and The Other Editor do the same. And about the time it starts hitting shelves, I'll turn off the internet and hide under my bed for a few weeks, before crawling out and resuming work on whatever insane thing is consuming my life by that point.

It feels good to finally have momentum on my side. It feels real, real good...and a little bit frightening, like I'm trying to steer a Doom Buggy down a major highway at rush hour. And this puppy doesn't have any brakes.

When will you Rise?

Words: 8,409.
Total words: 70,056.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter fourteen. My shoulders hurt.
Music: random shuffle, lots of loud country music. THE MUSIC OF PAIN.
Cats: Alice, on the guest room bed; Lilly, loafed up on the cat tree; Thomas, on the bed, looking fluffy.

So the manuscript for Blackout is now a) over 70,000 words long, and b) 245 pages long, which sounds very impressive when you put it like that. Given that the book is estimated as coming in between 140,000 and 150,000 words, I'm approaching the point where I can safely say that I'm halfway home. That will be nice. I'll like it when I hit that point.

This book is...interesting. It's been going more slowly than Deadline and more quickly than Feed, as I start paying off the things I've spent two books setting up, and try to make sure that my science, fringe as it is, doesn't have any massive gaping holes that could have somehow been avoided. It's weird to know that this is the last time I'm going to be spending with these people. I mean, I'll have months and months of writing and editing and page proofs and everything, but...this is the last brand-new book. This is where it all ends.

This is where we have to Rise.