I call it half done...the first draft, anyway. Which means that my WIP is really only about a quarter done. Because even when you're done, you're only half done. Yeah, I would say that when the first draft is done, it's about half way through the process, and maybe not even that much.
But, OK, nothing gets done unless you get that first draft down, from beginning to the end. A novel's completed first draft is still something about which any writer can cheer. It's like I said before...it's getting all the pieces of a puzzle on the table, and after that you can fit them together as you like.
It's a great feeling, anyway. Even to have half of it in front of you.
Yeah, so how do I know it's half done. Like I mentioned before, I target my novels to be about 85,000 to 90,000 words and somewhere over 300 pages. Killer Eyes is now at 42,500 words and page 151.
My first novel, Killer of Killers was over 100,000 words at the completion of the first draft. But your manuscript always ends up less words for all the revising. You end up deleting a lot of unnecessary words here and there...sometimes whole sentences, and even sometimes whole paragraphs. That's the second half of the journey. I think it might even be the part I enjoy more. Well, I don't know. Both are fun. Oh, well, can't start thinking about that yet. I still have over 40,000 words to go. Sheesh, I don't like looking at it that way. Let me go back to the way I started this post.
Yeah, I'm half done...42,000 words down and on page 151. (Yeah, that sounds better.)
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