Preemptive Retaliation

It’s strange to think that, after years of toiling on my detective story, going back and forth on it, trying out different things – it’s strange to think that I could write something much quicker than that.

Last night I finished the first draft of my new novel, Sausage Factory. It runs at about ninety-five thousand words, which is the longest thing I’ve ever written. I expect that after I go through a few revisions that will be chopped down considerably. Still – it’s a good high score.

Not all the words are good words. I think halfway through I decided to focus on a different tack entirely, so it’s possible I have two different halves of two similar but different novels, but it’s all fixable.

It’s a good story. It flows well, from what I can remember. I don’t feel anxious about going back to it. I don’t feel as though it is a problem that needs to be solved. In fact I am having to force myself not to dive right back into it, to start tweaking it and fixing it. I need to let it sit. I need to let it breathe.

The problem is that I’ve conditioned myself to write. For the past eighty plus days I have conditioned myself to write at least three hundred words a day. I’ve kept to it, regimentally. Now I’m just expected to stop? I don’t know if I can do that.

But I do need a holiday.

I’ll take a holiday. My eighty day streak is good, it’s another high score. And the good thing about high scores is that you get to try and beat them.