Draft Two, Complete

It’s done. It was patchwork towards the end, but I completed my second draft of Into the West. I have send a proof off to LuLu.com to get 5 copies printed. Two for myself and one to send to each of my alpha readers.

It’s rough. I feel like my first draft was really more idea vomit than a full draft. Now we have, or at least I hope to have, a bit more cohesion in the plot, some better pacing and some added action.

I also realized about 90% of the way through the draft just how passive I was writing. Many sentences started off with Por thought, or Por saw, or Por felt. It’s OK some times, but most of the time it’s just weak writing.

I am now working on building out my Fandom Wiki as a place to keep notes on characters and places while beginning to think about my outline for NaNaWriMo2020. I am debating between a stand alone work and another novel in the same world as Into the West. I have two months to outline, and then November and December to write a new first draft. Come January, I will revisit Into the West and begin Draft 3.

For my own enjoyment, I like to keep meticulous statistics on my writing work. I’ve included some of those statistics below.

Thanks for reading, I hope to provide more regular posts and updates in the intervening time.

-JL