The official second draft of Burn This City is weighing in at 106,531 words. It's been pretty intense "self-edits" - really a misnomer because those were both my edits and I've also gathered feedback from the betas, and some of the feedback had a major impact on what is now the second draft.
The first draft had about 101k words, and I know for a fact I've cut short scenes and multiple paragraphs to the tune of 7-8k, but ended up with a longer book, so I've probably written around 10-15k new words, and this is before the editors have even touched it. I'm expecting a cover concept in the next few days too.
I'm still laughing when I think that this was meant to be a "simple dark romance, no more than 50-60k because I don't really have much plot". You'd think I'd know how this will go by now.
With the book sent of to the editors, I'll now focus on some translation work and research for my mainstream fantasy trilogy and the WWII book I've been meaning to write for far too many years, but those won't be 2021 news - just the WWII book alone will next probably 6-8 more months, and the trilogy could easily take longer than that.
Mostly, it'll be good to clear the mafia research books and notes from my desk and think about/work on something different. This pass has been really intense because the first draft was in a very poor state (not going to work like that again), and keeping 106k in my head at the same times is really quite tough.
But, in any case, it's done and I think it's shaping up to be a good book, and that is what counts.
No comments:
Post a Comment