I just started the third draft of my longest story yet. It’s 200 pages or 124,000 words long! I wrote this story in late 2016, did the second edit in mid-2017 and now here I am again. I remember that I really loved writing this book. I had a rough outline in my head and mostly knew where it was heading, but I pantsed the entire writing process. Which is strange, because I mostly plan my other books to some degree.
I think it was a good thing that I did it this way because it created a sense of urgency to write before I forgot. I was also writing about 2,000 words a day around my splits shifts. Morning, lunch and night. It was a massive achievement to get something like this done because all my other writing marathons have always been under 50,000, most averaging around 30,000.
The split shifts helped because I’d write for a few hours and then go to work and it’d make me plan out what would happen next. Though the process is not without fault. One of the minor characters seems to have gone missing with no explanation. And the main character is a bit unrealistic. Eekk, my bad. I’ll have to work something out.
Currently, I’ve done 6 pages or 3%.
Stephanie Haggarty 