The first draft is now complete, having come in at
approx 52,000 words. And because it was a rough (I’m trying to avoid saying the
words ‘messy’ or ‘rubbish’) draft, I’ve already boosted the count up to around
60,000 words on my first quick read through. The final word count will be
around 80,000 at least.
I’m relieved to have the first
draft completed. I find them tough going, and, I’ll admit, I can become a bit
of a hermit, shunning social occasions in order to write. That’s because I get somewhat
obsessed with my characters at first draft stage, and I need to concentrate on
getting their story down on the page, and real life just gets in the way. It
can be a little bit like turning up at the supermarket and realising you’ve
forgotten your list and having to remember everything, feeling frantic while
you place items in your trolley, yelling at people not to talk to you in case
they make you lose your train of thought, constantly worried you’re missing
something important. But once I get to the end of the first draft, once the
framework is down – and because of the obsessive way I work, that can be in as
little as 2 or 3 months – I can breathe again.
I don’t plan my novels before
hand, I just write. I prefer doing it this way because I like my characters to
be in charge – I plunge them into situations but they have to figure out where
to go from there. The organic nature of going-with-the-flow avoids me becoming
blinkered and allows me to spot and explore exciting opportunities I – or,
rather, my characters – might have otherwise missed.
So now I have the first draft
and first read through finished – the first read through is a bit like going
back to your home after an earthquake to see how much damage has been done – I
can now spend the coming months in a much more relaxed state of mind, editing
and developing and ‘making sense of out nonsense’.
This early stage of editing is
my favourite part of the writing process. The structure is built and I can now
start decorating – the fun bit. I can get into each scene and draw out all the
possibilities, like choosing the colour scheme for your new house, and going
off all excited to buy the paint and the knick knacks. But the only thing about
decorating is it gets bloody boring real quick. I’ll soon reach the
if-I-read-this-manuscript-one-more-time-I’ll-smash-my-face-into-the-computer-screen
phase. Once there, I’ll take a break for a couple of months and write something
else while this one brews. Then it’s time for the last edits and then it’ll be
release day – I’m hoping for end of this year or early 2015.
Like I said, Blog of the Dead 3
is in its early stages right now, but expect to be reunited with Sophie,
Misfit, Charlotte, Kay and Clay as they travel through the apocalypse in search
of Zombie-Shelby, meeting an array of weird and often dangerous characters
along the way – oh, and a ton of zombies, too! Unfortunately, I can’t promise
the whole team will make it to the end, because they won’t. No one is safe in
the zombie apocalypse...
