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The last couple days have been crazy-busy, so today I finally finished typing in all the notes and words for Jara's story.

Total book count so far:  28,026 words

Total NaNoWriMo count: 17.445 words

Total count of notes and backstory: 7,909 words

Which is all well and good, but I've now got to sit down and see where the story is going so I can tell if there is more that I can do before I start the rewrite.  As I've written, I've changed so much of the premise that I think I'm at the point were I have to just start the blasted thing over again.

Which is perfectly fine.  :-)  It means that I've got the raw draft done, and I'm starting on the first draft.

Before I start the new draft, I'll sit down and fill out time-lines and histories for people and the cultures.  I'll do a better job of world-building, since I now know so much more about the people and the situation.  I'll fix up the map if I need to.  I'll figure out names for a whole slew of people.  In general, I'll put all the backstory together so that the next draft is solid and will only need a polish.

I can hear some of you say "How can you call 28k words a completed draft?"  And I answer, that I know I wrote it very, very skimpy for what it'll finally be.  Complete scenes were left out.  Other scenes are only a sentence or two.  There is almost no setting and very little elaboration on anything.  Plus this takes me only to the black moment, so I have the whole end-part of the book to write.  If I add that all together, I'll be lucky to keep this under the 110k limit for most of the publishers I'm aiming this book at.

And I can hear others say "Why are you stopping here? Why don't you just write the rest?"  The honest answer to that is I don't know the rest.  I started out the book with the idea that a war is going on, and it turns out to be a failed rescue attempt that's escalated all out of proportion.  I started out with a forest  that turned into a swamp.  I started out with a simple people and a simple culture and they've turned remarkably complex.  I started out with two characters, and I'm working toward my usual cast of thousands, each with their own personalities and stories.  So, I really truly don't know what the black moment is going to be until I fill out the timelines and histories of the people and cultures to actually see what is the worst thing that could happen to them.

The good news is that I know how it ends, so once I get a better handle on the players and situation, figuring it all out should go fairly quickly.