For those of you watching, I’m past the 65% point on Bad Penny. I’ve set the target at 90,000 words, but, of course, I don’t know if that’s exactly how long it will be. I have two big sequences left, one of which is the climax. My stats so far:
- Pre-draft development hours: about 50
- Draft 1 hours: about 90
- Total hours: 140
- Words (draft 1): 59,009
- Words per draft hour: about 650
I’ve spent time thinking that I haven’t recorded–time on walks or driving. And time doing research. So this is understated, but it’s probably accurate enough. The good news is that I’m writing this draft slightly faster than I did the first draft of my last novel.
Now look at those numbers again. If I was doing this full time, it would have taken a week, maybe two do finish the pre-draft development. Then another two or three weeks to get to this point. Dang, how nice would that be! Once I finish, I’ll let it sit for a month. Then I’ll revise. Then I’ll give it to my expert beta readers. Then I’ll revise again and send it out for sale.
As for pen names, here’s what I selected out of a finalist list of about 200 names:
- John Blackburn
- John Crawford
- John Clawson
- John Holland
- John Holloway
- John Lee
- John Nash
- John Walker
Which will it be?
I’m voting for Blackburn (but I may be biased).
Indeed you are 🙂 Thanks for the input
Have you googled your names? John Nash is, of course, the famous mathematician from A Beautiful Mind. You might not want your pen name overshadowed like that.
Yes, googled them all. Of course, try googling “John Brown” (grin). Nash is such a cool name. And both Blackburn and Lee, I discovered after coming up with them and geeking out, were thriller writers as well. I think Lee is still alive, in his 90’s. So, having lived with John Brown for some time now, I’ve given up on being unique.