This time, it’s the zombie novella. Overall, it took me about two weeks of active writing to finish it. Well, maybe less. But finished it is. Now, it’s not a great body of words, only 14K, but for the first installament in a crazy series, I guess it’s cool enough. You might wonder what’s so special about this zombie piece that you haven’t seen anywhere else before?
In just 34 days! And it’s 102K words! This averages to about 3K words a day, and it’s my new personal record, when we compare it to my best achievement so far, the third, penultimate and upcoming book in The Lost Words series. Now, let me tell you a bit about this new book.
I guess writing a single one is not a challenge anymore. So I have started writing three new ones, more or less simultaneously. Three! Now that I’ve finished The Lost Words series, I am trying new things. The first book is a gunpowder-era fast-action no-magic adventure, with a special kind of protagonist. If you can guess, I’m gonna buy you a dinner. Seriously.
It’s like that legendary British TV series, Are You Being Served?, only completely different. In fact, I want to talk to you about how reading other people’s work may influence your own writing. Emphasis on may, which is why we are here.
My very first fantasy read was The Hobbit. And I immediately fell in love with the book. I was probably twelve at the time. Next came The Lord of The Rings, which really opened the world of fantasy books before me. I was still a youngster back then, and I struggled slightly with the multitude of characters and plots.
Anyhow, what I want to talk to you is one’s change in the like and dislike of certain authors and sub-genres of the fantasy world, and how my own perception of the literary works changed over time, most likely caused by the inevitable aging and arguable mental maturity gently settling upon my shoulders. So what gives?
There we go, book three is underway! I have contacted my publisher, and now we’re going to start the editing process, with all its subtle and time-consuming little details, including going through all of the manuscript and fixing errors and whatnot, designing the cover and the rest.
And when I say mine, I mean yours. Now, so far you have only had two books, which means we cannot discuss those who survive into the third and fourth installment of this series, but we sure can dabble a little into the protagonists, antagonists and other gonists featured in The Betrayed and The Broken.
Year 2014 has officially commenced. Do you know what that means? Yes you do. You have just read the title of this article, like duh. But yes, I am going to contact my editor any time now, and start working on the third volume in The Lost Words series. In other words, fun.
On May 15 this year, I started writing the fourth and the last book in the series. A few days ago, let’s call it October 15, I finished the last page in the last chapter of this last book. Five months later, 150 days in total, with 200,000 words spread over 53 chapters, the series is complete. If you’re any good at math, you will realize, it averages to about 1,300 words a day. Compare that to book three, which took 105 days, for some 240,000 words. Now, let’s examine the series as a whole.
Well, well. I am in the process of writing the last six chapters in the fourth and final book of The Lost Words series. As you imagine, the plot is very much complete, but that does not mean all the stories have been fully resolved yet. In fact, there is still time to kill a few more of the main characters. That’s a must, no?
