Word count -- DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON.: seanan

Word count -- DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON.

Current stats:

Words: 7,137.
Total words: 85,301.
Reason for stopping: about midway through chapter twenty-two, totally exhausted.
Music: my evolving Discount Armageddon mix.
Lilly and Alice: asleep in my tank top drawer, being a puddle of blue and white fur.

The speed with which this draft is suddenly materializing is a little scary, and is making me feel faintly hag-ridden. Seriously, there's "my normal writing speed," and then there's "writing to make a deadline," and then there's "holy Great Pumpkin in the sacred patch, where the hell did the day go?" Assuming this book comes out at exactly the estimate, I have fewer than 20,000 words left to go. Second draft will cut ten percent of that. (Actually second draft will cut twenty percent, but half of what I cut will be replaced by clarification, necessary bridgework, and general textual repairs. That's what second draft is for.)

After this draft is done, I have to focus fully on Blackout and The Brightest Fell while my proofreading pool crawls all over the text and rips it into tiny bleeding shreds. (For Christmas this year, I'm getting a bloodbath! Just what I always wanted.) I figure I should have space on the docket to get into Midnight Blue-light Special sometime around May...you know, when I have the Guest of Honor slot and the book coming out. Gosh, it's fun to live inside my head sometimes, in the sense that apparently even I don't think I need to sleep. Sleep is for the weak and sickly, right?

I am so in love with this book right now. I am so in love with this series right now. I am so in love with this world right now, with its reality shows and its cryptid-owned strip clubs and its many, many expeditions into the sewers of Manhattan. I can see where a second draft is going to be absolutely necessary, but right now? Right now, I am just enjoying the hell out of the ride.

I can't wait for you to meet these people.

mathnerd

November 24 2009, 05:28:49 UTC 7 years ago

New comment

Seanan, apologies for the completely off-topic post, but I has a query for you.

If I wanted to be brave and roast a big bird for the first time ever, and I wanted to use your recipe from last year... you mention a roasting pan. What exactly counts as a roasting pan? If I don't have one, are there disposable versions or non-expensive solutions out there? Does this even make sense?

Panicking and avoiding homework and considering going vegan just to avoid turkeys,
Mathsy

seanan_mcguire

November 24 2009, 05:32:23 UTC 7 years ago

Fear not! Also, I'm re-posting the recipe tomorrow, because I try to be useful.

Step one: Go to the grocery store.
Step two: Find a cheap-ass aluminum turkey pan big enough for your bird.
Step two-A: If this makes no sense, find an employee and tell them you need an aluminum turkey pan.
Step three: Purchase.
Step four: TURKEY!

It will be fine, I promise. Turkeys are actually very easy, and soooooo delicious.

ladyfox7oaks

November 24 2009, 06:58:47 UTC 7 years ago

One LITTLE, TINY step you might want to consider...

BREATHE!
Your lungs will appreciate the oxygen, and NOT passing out is kinda important. :)

November 24 2009, 07:02:26 UTC 7 years ago

Yes, ma'am. ;)

I work on remembering to breathe. Sometimes I forget.

November 24 2009, 07:16:20 UTC 7 years ago

I do the same thing... It's why I am always reminding others! :P You'll be fine. If Seanan's turkey recipe is half as yummy as "Wicked Girls" is compelling, you won't have any leftovers to worry about. (Though Turkey noodle soup the day after is wonderful, too!)

November 24 2009, 16:25:16 UTC 7 years ago

Dude, my turkey recipe is made of hammered awesome. I would stack my ginger turkey against nigh any other turkey known to man, including the deep-fried ones (which are admittedly more likely to come with their own columns of flame).

November 24 2009, 06:55:59 UTC 7 years ago

Why do I get the sensation that somewhere in the back of your mind, there's a portion of you going "YEEEEE-HAAAWWW!!!!" as it base jumps into the Abyss...