The Hope of Memory [Update 7] Book Two Midpoint

For those who care, I'm just about halfway done with the first draft of the second book in my The Hope of Memory trilogy, entitled Wilders.  There will be a total of 19 chapters in the first part, I'm on 16 right now, at around 76K words.  I'm trying to keep each part under 90K, so I'm on pace to hit that.  It has taken me roughly 3 months to write the first half.

Which is good, although I do know that I'll need to be beefing up some of the description in some areas - I don't get overly description in a first draft, because for me it's more important to get the story down and hit all the major plot points.  Once I get all that down I can later edit in any details I feel are necessary or fix continuity issues, which do happen, since I am writing this longhand and sometimes it's hard to search back through previous notepads to find a specific detail.

Pen vs. Keyboard

The initial drafts for much of my fiction has been written in longhand.  In the past this was because I didn't want to take my bulky laptop everywhere; it was easier just to bring along a notepad and write.  Laptops are much more compact these days, but now it's more about the fact that writing longhand is slower, so I have more time to think about what I'm writing.  Of course, it doesn't help when I'm on a roll and thinking faster than I can write.  That's when my handwriting gets very sloppy and my hand cramps.

An added benefit is that when I type it all up, I can do the second draft editing at the same time.  It's not a typical way to edit, I suppose, but I've done it many times before and find that it works for me.

When I'm finished I'll post a picture of the complete manuscript.  It will be exciting... a pile of yellow notepads.