So, Annie and I are approaching “page” 40, and the story, while progressing at a reasonable rate, is getting long. We haven’t missed any of our deadlines, and have only come late (later on release day) once. We have published around 1200 words, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since starting this project and it has been hard. Lately, we’ve been cutting it close as Annie is back at work, and I’m currently helping cover the last of the summer vacations.

I know that some people can write a novel in a month through Nanowrimo. I know that I used to write upwards of five thousand words per day back at the height of my blogging, but writing articles about technology or WordPress was much easier than writing a long piece of fiction.

The story continues to grow and evolve. We have to keep track of details we’ve used before so we aren’t stepping on our own toes. Of course, this is our first draft, and we are being careful, but not concerning ourselves too much with anything other than getting the plot down.

It has been amazing having people reading the story as we write it, and providing us with feedback and energy through their enjoyment. Some days, it is really hard, even between the two of us, to get a page out. We only dedicate a few hours a week to writing the story, and sometimes, it can be draining to get from one scene we have planned to the next.

Currently, as we are getting later into the plot, I’m finding it more difficult sometimes. We still don’t have a concretely planned out ending. The story has just introduced it’s last major plot twist/development and we still have to pay service to the plot points we’ve already added. The story is, in my mind, sufficiently dense. The overall arc should work out reasonably well when we are done. We are already considering edits to drive our points home a bit better, and really clean things up a bit more.

Sometimes when I’m feeling really slow moving, it helps to ignore what has come before, and write a short story within the larger context. Annie and I start each new “page” with a few bullet points about what we want to cover. From there, we begin to write. Sometimes, she does the whole page, and I only need to add some exposition, or touch up a few things. Other times, it’ll be the reverse. As we’ve gotten better at working together, we sometimes just split the page, and each do the half we are most interested in, coming back and editing the other person’s piece.

Writing a fictional novel is not easy, but I am glad Annie and I are doing it. I think, after we are done, I might want to just work on some short stories for a little while before tackling our next novel project.

I figure if we printed what we have today, we’d be over 135 paperback pages. We have nearly 50,000 words written and it has been less than four months.

We will probably try to wrap up the story in the 50’s, or for those reading each release, by the end of October. From there, we hope to get a cover made, edit the story, have someone do some copyediting on it, get some formatting done, purchase an ISBN and finally get it made into both an e-book you can purchase and a soft cover novel. We hope to finish this process before our wedding in April.

I couldn’t have done this without Annie’s help, support and amazing ability to bring characters to life. I can’t wait to hold a copy of Second Class Supers in my hand.