I'm happy

1577 seems to be the final word count for chapter two. That’s a 198-word increase. Whoohoo. That’s almost twice my self-imposed goal per chapter. I am very happy about this, because I know it won’t be as easy with subsequent chapters.

The easy chapters, the ones I had fun writing, will probably be easier to fatten. When a chapter doesn’t flow as well as I would like or I don’t feel as comfortable with the chapter’s subject matter [see my entry on action scenes] I work on it until my fingers bleed. Most of the time that means those chapters are the most polished and scrutinized. Adding 100 words won’t be easy.

Sometimes I wonder if the creation process is easier for writers who just write and worry about the editing later. I edit as I write. I might put down a paragraph or two so as not to lose the flow of the words or so that I can get to that one sentence that has been flitting around inside my skull. But generally I work with the sentences as they are born. They need to flow one into the next, to fit together like puzzle pieces.

And you can’t really solve a puzzle by fitting pieces together that just look like they might fit. Either they fit or they don’t.