By Patricia Bradley
That was me on January 1, 2023. My word count for each book is 90,000-100,000 words. On the first day of the year, I still had 35,000 words to write. I would just make my deadline if I wrote about 1,300 words a day. That's if I wrote seven days a week...which I rarely do. And in between the book writing, I also had several blog posts to write
I'm not one of those writers who can turn out four thousand words in a writing session. I wish! The most I've ever written in a day is thirty-five hundred words and that was a one-time thing. Normally I can write two thousand words fairly easily, but there weren't any "normal" days in November or December...I wasn't sure there would be any in January.
So, thirteen hundred words a day should be easy-peasy. Right? Wrong. For some reason, I was pansting this book (You know, writing by the seat of my pants). Normally I have a loose outline. At least I know what direction I'm going in, but not this book.
If I were looking for someone or something to blame, it would be coming down with the flu right after I started the book. For two weeks, I didn't write anything. And even after I recovered enough to sit behind a computer again, my brain didn't--there was a serious lag in my brain catching up.
So, here I was last week, honing in on "THE END" when I realized I had the wrong villain. I've had that to happen before, but this time, I'd skipped ahead and written the ending.
Time is ticking. Deadline is looming. And I have to rewrite the last quarter of the book. Rats! But I couldn't leave it with the wrong killer. Because I'd asked for an extension on the last book, I didn't want to ask for one on this book...
So, I prayed (not that I wasn't already praying, but this was a flare-prayer), then dug in and made the corrections. I hit send at 3:31 Wednesday afternoon. Yes, God is still in the miracle business!
I have about three weeks before my editor sends the manuscript back with a list of changes that need to be made...it should be interesting.
Anyhoo, this is a look at the life of a writer on deadline. I'll let you know if I make good on that promise to not get behind on a deadline.
Have you ever gotten behind on a deadline of some sort? Maybe over-commit and then realize you have way too much going on in your life? Leave me a comment about it and I'll enter you in a drawing for one of my books--your choice.
And the randomly-drawn winner of last month's drawing of what you'd do if you had all that money was Perrianne Andrews! I'll be contacting you!