First of all: I'm sorry for not making it around to anyone's blogs for the past two weeks. >_< I've been ridiculously busy trying to get stuff done and half-melting from the heat (I though I left summers like this behind when I left Albuquerque), so... yeah. I'll do my best to get back to it this weekend.
In better news, I finished the third round of editing on STARWIND on Sunday. Yay! Seeing as how I'm still a little worn out from the whole process and exhausted from work and my brain's otherwise busy feeding me stuff for books I might never get to write, I thought it would be interesting to run down some stats for the book. Let's see...
First draft word count: 98,356
Current draft word count: 102,101
Chapter count: 26
Uses of the word "Starwind": 140
Uses of the word "gnome": 15
Uses of the word "fuck": 24
Characters wounded: 3
Characters killed: 3
Characters set on fire: 1
Characters whose names spellcheck hates: 9
Hugs: 5
Kisses: 14
Explosions: at least 2
Chekhov's Guns fired: 1
Actual guns fired by main characters: 0
Actual guns fired by everyone else: lots
Number of worlds visited: 7
Number of safe worlds visited: 3
Number of items required for the race: 5
Number of items required for the race the crew outright steals: 3
Fight scenes: 4
Bar scenes: 2
Bar fight scenes: 1
"Run like hell" scenes: 2
I think that's enough for now. :P I'm going to set the book aside for a week or so and finally take down all the plot notes I've scribbled over the past three weeks, then polish the hell out of this book in preparation for the writing workshop/cruise. If all goes as planned with that, I'll have a bunch of people I don't know critiquing the first 2-3 chapters. Wish me luck. O_o
You set a character on fire? You're harsh.
ReplyDeleteSpellcheck usually hates all of my characters' names.
Glad you finished another round of edits.
Trust me, setting someone on fire was an important plot point. The book wouldn't be the same without it.
Delete...what?
Spellcheck and character names tend to disagree with each other (silly spellchecker) Interesting that your mcs don't fire a gun, but everyone around them is trigger happy (not a bad thing :) ) Congrats on getting so far with edits!!!
ReplyDeleteWell, one of the fight scenes has the characters trying to make their way through a fire-fight without drawing attention, hence not shooting. The rest of their problems can't all be solved with guns. ^_^
DeleteHave you tried adding your characters' names to your dictionary? It helps when you actually do spell your character's name wrong. :)
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Alex. Setting a character on fire is harsh!
I usually do add character names to my spellchecker, but most of the ones I haven't added are ones I came up with while writing, minor parts and the like. I do need to add them to make sure I didn't spell them wrong anywhere. >_<
DeleteFunny, I'm also setting characters on fire. Sort of a running theme at this point--hey, it's not my fault; there's a phoenix involved...and a bunch of dragons.
ReplyDelete...why is everyone so fixated on how I set a character on fire? O_o
Delete