The first draft of The Last Days is finally done!
And it was even in time for the seasonal Penguin sales conference. Of course, I had an extra 16 hours, thanks to a little trick that I call “living in Sydney.” Finished the draft at 10:26PM, and my editor got it at 6:30AM the same day. (Hah!)
It’s 60,000 words, and has a beginning, middle, and end–though I think the finale needs to be rather more fleshed out. It went longer than I thought, because what I expected to be the denoument turned out to be a whole ‘nother climax. Argh.
Records indicate that I wrote 10,000 words in the last three days. Don’t try this at home.
But all in all, it’s a worthy quasi-sequel to Peeps. It’s set in the same universe, but a few months farther along (by the end of the book) so you get to see much more of the vampire/zombie apocalypse hinted at in Peeps. What I mean by a quasi-sequel is that it follows different characters through the same time period in New York City, although Lace and Cal do make sizeable appearances. What’s interesting (to me, anyway) is that the characters in TLD know a lot less about what’s going on than Cal did in the first book, being as how they’re civilians and not in the Night Watch. So someone who’s already read Peeps will have more knowledge than the narrators, which was kind of a cool tension to play with.
Now all we need is a cover. Oh yeah, and lots of editors’ notes and rewrites.
Today I recovered by lying in a bathtub and reading Raymond Chandler’s letters. (Re-reading, actually.) I’m going to do a compendium of his writing advice for a post soon, but not before a Specials surprise tomorrow.
Now I am stopping typing because my wrists feel like hamburger.
i’m glad you got the first draft done. now the all thats left is all those rewrites to make it better for us fans. YAH REWRITES YAH!!!!!!!
well DONE!! a nice delmonico for you!
Hooray for finishing things, an art I have yet to master!
(And I liked the feel of all of those mock covers posted. They smacked of style.)
Mmmmm… hamburger.
Krissy’s reading “Succession,” BTW. She likes it. Thinks it needs more Jar-Jar, though.
Can’t wait. By the way, very excited *hint* *hint* for tomorrow. As said: can’t wait
Haha! im in the top ten people to comment you! woo hoo!
Well, congrats on the book! How’s Australia? did you see some kangaroos?
I really like the first two covers you showed on this site! they’re lovely. how do cover designers get people to be on their cover and make it realistic looking? do people actually audition for that stuff? i wish i could…but i haven’t really done much in the way of modeling.
wow thats great that you got that draft done! and you maight have noticed that i’ve only commented one time but trust me i read your blogs lol.
but yay i am really excited fot TLD to come out because i loved peeps and i am so happy that you did a sequel
later,
ashley
congrats with that! ^_^
but i was wondering what do you do if you’re so into your book then the next day you’re completely out of inspiration, cause that keeps happening to me. what would you do?
again, congrats with finishing the 1st draft!
Your wrists feel like hamburger?….That’s really gross. Hahaha.
Somebody said it.. Mmmm, hamburger..
My roommate left me a box of Hamburger Helper.. hmmm..
YAY for finishing drafts! 60,000 words is bigger than a NaNoWriMo Novel, woot! Did you write it in a month? Not likely..
*excited*
When is Specials comming out? MUST……….KNOW! Anyway, yay! Last Days is out. And to Ali, did you finish NaNoWriMo? I couldn’t. Got bored. SPECIALS!