A few more chapters are going to be combined I think, chapter 9/10 (which were previously 10/11) and maybe 13/14 or 14/15 although I'm a bit on the fence about those two. Not that I don't have anything for them, I'm just not sure how many "filler" chapters I want given how long this thing already is.
Have also been converting chapters to treasure trove of words formatting and printing them once they're done so they're ready to go when draft 1 editing begins in late March/early April. The plan then being to rewrite the whole thing with the edits over Easter long weekend.
About 3/5ths of the way through chapter 9/10.
18/11/24 (WC 69939 - 71418) Total: 1479
Almost done with chapter 9.
19/11/24 (WC 71418 - 73501) Total: 2083
Looking set to be done with the word vomit masterpiece just before the 2 orbit party anniversary of starting it (Feb 27th 2023)
Chapter 9 is done and I've opted to merge 11+13 meaning I've finished almost half of the chapters!!
21/11/24 (WC 73501 - 74521) Total: 1020
Have been working on ch10 all week and it's finally done!! Over half way now!!
22/11/24 - 27/11/24 (WC 74521 - 79983) Total: 5462
Have pushed back my draft one deadline a week to 02/02/25 because I got too busy (getting tattooed again, testing out my new runners, buying furniture in black friday sales, being a bit depressed, getting distracted by a 6 hour long podcast).
Chapter 11 is getting there I guess but is also making me a little insane.
02/12/24 (WC 79983 - 81723 ) Total: 1740
Have realised that maybe my word vomit masterpiece has some glaring problems and it may be worthwhile to abandon the goal of finishing draft 1, rejigging the whole thing and starting draft 2 now instead of waiting until it's done in Feb???? Have for the time being thrown away the schedule and am going to work on something else for a bit until I have some Christmas leave to think things over for more than a weekend.
verbose-o-meter is at 84011 btw
I have scrapped draft 1 (kinda, I will be keeping passages I like that have already been written). Draft 2 has now been fully outlined and is a much more streamlined version of the original. 23 chapters have been reduced down to just 12, with a greater emphasis on worldbuilding elements that were getting bogged down by complicated side plots which have now been removed. It's possible I've overcorrected and have cut too much, but that's what draft 3 is for. I've also tried to focus more on character development in this draft as it was getting pushed to the side in the original.
I've set a strict schedule of 1 chapter per week with a 1 week break between act 1+2 and act 2+3, and plan to have this draft finished in time for the easter long weekend to be edited then. This draft is also written in treasure trove of words formatting to save me time I was spending changing it manually chapter by chapter before printing each to have a physical copy to make editing annotations on before.
I have finished chapter 1 already, it's largely the original chapters 1+2 combined into one but does have some editing and a new opening to shift it more in the direction of the new draft.
31/12/24 (WC 0 - 8672) Total: 8672 (excluding chapter names and gap notations, which I believe were included in the WCs in the original draft)
I'm alive I promise. I've realised my draft 2 also has glaring issues and so am completely reworking the story. The main issue being that it jumps around the world too much and still has too many little side stories. I have done some market research (ie. reading similar grimoires for the same age range) and am trying to simplify the story to the extent to which the grimoires I have read are. Trying to get back to writing by my 22nd birthday on the 31st.