Contractual benchmark obliterated and still obliterating

After yesterday’s day of writing I thought I had surpassed my contractually obligated 65,000 words and was feeling kind of proud. It turns out I had excluded a few chapters and my count is actually 71,163 and growing.

This is exciting in a sense, but it is also scary because I’m not done. I’m wrapping things up, but I bet I could be flirting with that 80,000 word mark by the end. Early on, I asked Caren, my agent, what was typical to be over or under. She told me 1,000 words. Yikes, that’s precise.

Although, it would have been even scarier if I finished the last chapter spot on the 65K mark because I need editing room. Normally, I write 1,000 words to get 800 (what I consider to be) good ones. That means I have to write 125% more than the target amount. It turns out that writing 80K to get 65K is pretty much on pace to do that. I love it when it looks like you actually know what your doing, but you know you don’t.

Next week I’ll probably pull out the red pen and start the slashing. It should be fun.