novelist’s event horizon

I’ve just figured out why I feel like I’m slogging so very, very badly on this book. Realistically, I’m not: I’ve broken 500 pages, and a week ago I…ok, it was two weeks, that kind of sucks, oh well, but anyway, I was at 400 pages two weeks ago, and that’s not a bad rate of work. It’s not as awesome as I’d like it to be, but then, I was brainless-sick for four days, too, and lost another couple struggling with how to fix a scene. But anyway, that’s not the point.

The real problem is that I’ve been in the Novelist’s Event Horizon (the point at which you have been writing the book forever, and yet there is no end in sight, and never will be) for forty thousand words already. This book, in an ideal world, would be around 140K in length, so at 90K, well, in theory, I had 50,000 words to go.

I am now at 130K, and in the worst case scenario, I’ve *still* got 50K to go.

This is the *longest* damned NEH I’ve ever been stuck on, and it’s *killing* me.

I mean, on the bonus side, if it turns out that I can actually manage to bring the book in around 165K, which is the number I’ve been eyeing as maybe the more realistic wordcount (I knew it was never going to be 140K, not really, but that’s what TQB came in at, so it’s the number my editor would probably have been okay with), then I’ve got 35K left, which isn’t particularly intimidating.

But it’s too far out. I really can’t tell right now if I can bring it in at 165. So I have to keep eyeing the worst-case scenario (I’m pretty sure it won’t go over 180K, because I’ll have to kill myself if it does) as the “I’ve got to be prepared to write this much by, oh, say, April 23rd at the latest, so I’ll have time to edit it and will still be able to get it turned in this month” number. This is event horizon *hell*, and I want *out* of it, *please*.

When I’m done writing tomorrow I will, quantum willing and the river don’t rise, *know* that I have less than 50K to write. *Please*, God, *please*, let me be looking at 45K or less tomorrow. I’m desperate.

ytd wordcount: 147,600
miles to Minas Tirith: 261.2

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