The end is near

...and that's a good thing.

I can now see the end of tunnel for the Sapphire Sirens. Yeah. I had actually written my way to the end of the tunnel while in Costa Rica but when I arrived back home and read the ending I decided I wanted to make the ending different.

It's funny you plot a book from beginning to end. Then you start writing that book and that book starts to take new meaning. The characters tend to grow and change as they take on lives of their own. In this case I decided the ending I had envisioned no longer messed well with how the characters had grown.

The new ending is better. Really it is. That is my story and I am sticking too it.

More speed

I am no finally wrapping up The Sapphire Sirens.  I have found out something else about my writing speed, it really increases when I can see the finish line.

I am so close to being done now I can taste it.  I see the end in my minds eye clearly I just need to write it.  The cool thing is I am writing it quite quickly.  I am here on break visiting family in Costa Rica for a couple of days.   It's not the most conducive environment for writing, we live in a crowded part of town, I have a LOT of relatives around, we have many barking dogs, there are many honking horns and there are a lot of construction workers working away.  Yet despite all of this I have been putting down over 5K words a day.  

I guess now that I can see the end I write my way to it fast before I forget it.  :)  Actually I just want to wrap this one up as I always feel so much better once I have all 80K words down.

Writing Speed

On a normal day I write between 1500 -- 2500 words.  This is usually over the course of 4-6 hours depending on what's going on in my life.  On a good day with no distractions I can do about 4000 words.  My record is 10,000 words on a day with no sleep.

The funny thing is I noticed that I write faster when I am writing a fight scene.  I don't know why.  Maybe because I get excited?  Maybe because I am anxious to get the moves down before I forget. But yesterday I wrote a 500 word fight scene in like 30 minutes.  

Man if I could write every scene so quickly I could get a novel done in a week.

The "Oh Wow" Moment

I am chugging along on the Sapphire Sirens. I am finally starting to get over my "mental lag" from my father's recent passing and get the story clicking again.

As I have mentioned before I write from a pretty extensive outline (usually 25+ pages) but I allow myself to venture off of the outline when the story calls for it. After all sometimes you don't know a character or how characters will react to a situation until you write for those characters for a bit and get to know them and the situation.

Plugging along suddenly it hit me. All along I have known who the killer or killers are in this story and what their motives were but then my brain said, "Oh wow, wouldn't it be cool if I did this..." The this being making the killer a totally different person.

I totally fought down that "Oh wow" moment. I have a very clear version of this story and where it is heading. Following that "oh wow" moment would have clouded that vision and slowed the process down. Being slowed down is something neither I or my publisher wants right now. Especially since this thought was more of a whim than a true thought out thought. Maybe if I had more time I could explore it but not this time. Books are created by having a solid foundation and plans on how to build up from that foundation.

True it might have been fun to explore where this new path would lead me, but when you are deadline the goal is to get there as fast as can. Will I regret not following a whim? Perhaps. But if Sapphire Sirens finishes on time and is an enjoyable read it will be a regret I can live with.

Peace.