Week 2 of writing my latest vampire romance novel, Heart of Darkness, is now complete and I managed to make another giant leap towards getting this story finished in what has to be record time for me.

I had reached around 36500 words at the end of last week, which was fantastic progress in my first week and 6000 words better that I had anticipated. This week the total so far has risen by yet another 36000 words, and now it stands at 72218. I had hoped to write 30000 words this week, so writing another 6000 on top is wonderful and really gives me confidence that I can probably have the first draft on this done by the end of next week/early the week after. I would be amazed if I manage to finish what will likely be a 120,000 word first draft of this vampire romance novel in only 3 weeks. That would be too extraordinary.

The darling husband told me not to rush, because surely it won’t be as good. I told him that I’m not rushing, I’m just writing at the speed my heart, mind and fingers long to go with this story. Because I have it all plotted out, scenes planned, etc, it means I can go quickly on it without fear of it being rubbish, because I know what I have is good. I just need to take what I’ve written as notes and make it into a story, and add in the parts which I didn’t plan out. I’m confident that the first draft of the story will be good, with only minor things to smooth out plot-wise and character-wise.

I did have to stop myself from writing on Thursday evening on the train home. I had accumulated 8000 words that day and my fingers were aching so much that I couldn’t type even when I really wanted to keep going. My fingers are an important part of my toolset though and I have to give them the break they need in order to stop them from wearing out!

I hit the middle section earlier in the week, which saw me slow down a bit too. I had to pause and think and then push on through. Thankfully I have found my flow again with the story and we’re dashing on. A lot has happened and we’re on the cusp of the heroine and hero finally getting together and surrendering to their love. It’s been a rocky road for these two, and there are still troubled times ahead for them to get through before the end of the book.

Arms are tired again from writing this looong blog post so I need a break. Here’s to another 30000 words next week. I don’t think I’ll push myself. If I manage 36000 again, I’ll be very excited when I post my week 3 catch up!

Cuppa tea time.

Well, the first week of writing Heart of Darkness is over and if you follow my Twitter then you already know that I made good progress. I had hoped to reach 30,000 words in this first week, so at least 1/4 of the book written, and actually managed to make it to 36,424 words thanks to some extra time because of football (ah, that’s a good pun) and the occasional wait for a later train back from work in London.

I’m giving myself a big old pat on the back for ending the week 6,424 words up. That’s a whole day of writing shaved off the schedule, and not bad considering that I only get an average of 3.5 hours to write a day (1 hour train journey to work, 30 minutes before work, lunch, and then 1 hour train journey home). I write fast, and many of you know what a prolific and focused writer I am when I get going.

I doubt that I will be able to manage another 36,000 words next week, but it’s possible because my husband is out on Wednesday evening. I might go for a jog and then do some writing.

Still unsure about how long it will be at the end of the first draft. I have 29 chapters plotted out, which should be around 120,000 words for me, but some of my chapters have been quite short so far. I’m at the start of writing chapter 12 now. So, it could be 90,000 words, it could be 120,000 words… but I sense some longer chapters coming soon, and I have some stuff to layer in to the previous ones. I’m still thinking 120,000.

I’m really enjoying writing this story though and can’t wait to get going on it again. I was slow with it at the start, probably because I’d planned it so thoroughly that the initial excitement had worn off and also that I was having doubts about how well I was going to be able to write it. Once I found my flow though, and realised that whatever I wrote, I could always improve it if I didn’t like it, I was flying!

So, here’s to next week. I’ll try to post a catch up at some point but I’m sure you’ll forgive me if it means I write another 500 words rather than blogged.

happy reading!