Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: accomplished
  • Music: REM, "Talk About the Passion."

Word count -- BLACKOUT.

Words: 7,639.
Total words: 142,065.
Estimated words remaining: 8,000.
Reason for stopping: I'm tired, and it's time for bed.
Music: really, really LOUD rock and roll.
Cats: Alice, eating; Lilly, loafing on the bed; Thomas, eating

On an average work night, I write between 2,000 and 4,000 words, along with assorted edits, emails, and the rest.

I have an estimated 8,000 words to go in this book. That is, essentially, two days of work. Now, I'm not actually going to finish Blackout on Wednesday; I have edits to process, and the first draft will almost certainly run 3,000 to 8,000 words long, giving me lots of room to go back and cut things that are repetitive or turn out not to be necessary. But I'll hit the point where everything becomes gravy sometime this week. Even with the event this weekend, even with Amy and Wes showing up on Friday, I'm almost there.

It's a weird feeling, sort of pride and terror all tangled up together. A lot of people are reserving judgement on the trilogy as a whole based on this book. If it's not good, they're going to be disappointed in me. So I have to stick this landing like it's the fucking Olympics, and I need to do it with style and grace. It's scary. It's amazing. It's the reason I write books, rather than sticking with stories that come out quicker and clearer and don't bleed on my floor quite as much.

We're almost there.
Tags: blackout, mira grant, word count
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  • 62 comments

notalwaysweak

June 7 2011, 08:23:24 UTC 6 years ago

Honestly? Given how good Feed and Deadline were -- and I'm not just saying this because it's you, I'm saying this because you singlehandedly converted me to be a fan of zombie stories -- the only way you could not stick the landing is if somebody greased the mat.

Quick question, and I apologise profusely if I missed this in the books/countdown: how did the Rising start in Australia? I think you said something about a plane with amplified passengers - is that right or am I imagining things?

seanan_mcguire

June 7 2011, 15:18:05 UTC 6 years ago

The jet incident came later. The Rising started in Australia much as it did elsewhere: in eleven places at once. At least one of them involved one of those kangaroo mobs and a group of dumb-ass tourists.

Bwhahahahahahahahaaa Oprah didn't put that in the brochure!

paynim

June 7 2011, 23:25:19 UTC 6 years ago

I have images of waves of stupid tourists being attacked by killer zombie boing-boings (Given the dints I've seen a male red put into a 4WD when pissed off?), throw in hordes of brumbies, camels, water buffalo, wombats, emus, cassowary (who you don't want to piss of before amplification!!), lucky our dingoes are rather petite canines for the most part but some may hit the right weight (jokes about eating babies aside...)

...put the Nikon down & RUN tourists, run!

archangelbeth

June 8 2011, 02:40:57 UTC 6 years ago

A friend and I were chatting about zombie 'roos and koalas. I pointed out that the zombie koalas might not be distinguishable, temper-wise, from the normal ones... >_>