I’ve passed the 50% mark of the rough human draft for Captive of the Falconstar, which means that I’ve got about 40k words left to go. Since I’ve been averaging between 2,000 and 2,500 words per hour, I only need about 20 writing hours to finish it.
I also have to finish the AI draft, which is somewhere around 80% done, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. Add maybe another 5 writing hours for that. Also, I plan to do a full human revision draft, and a final polished draft, which I will probably start this week. Those should each take between 16 – 20 writing hours.
So let’s see:
- AI draft: 5 writing hours
- Rough human draft: 20 writing hours
- Revised human draft: 20 writing hours (conservatively)
- Final polished draft: 20 writing hours (conservatively)
So all I really need is another 65 writing hours, and this WIP should be done and ready to move into the publishing queue.
Here’s the thing, though: I only get between 1-2 writing hours per day. I usually watch the kids while my wife is at work, and since we’re in March now there’s a lot of outdoor work that needs to get done, like pruning the apple trees and prepping the garden. So it’s going to be really hard to squeeze out any more writing hours than that. I do usually get more like 4-5 hours on Saturdays, though, while my wife watches the kids. But since we keep sabbath, I don’t write on Sundays.
So realistically, I can only get about 10 writing hours each week. Which means that I probably won’t finish this WIP until the second half of April. I was hoping to finish it by the end of this month—and if I had a solid week where I could write full-time, I probably could—but realistically, it’s probably going to take longer than I would like.
However, the good news is that it’s all going really smoothly. No writing blocks, no major story problems or hangups. Just a lot of putting in time and doing the work. And even with the chores and outdoor work, I do still get a good amount of writing time. My wife is really good about watching the kids in the evening, and it really helps to get out of the house to write.
So I am very confident that Captive of the Falconstar will be done by the end of April, enough that I will probably put it up for preorder in the next couple of weeks. As for the next book, I plan to work on it in the fall, but it probably shouldn’t take more than 3-4 months, even at my current pace.
