Bad Penny: two big sequences left plus list of pen names

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:

  1. John Blackburn
  2. John Crawford
  3. John Clawson
  4. John Holland
  5. John Holloway
  6. John Lee
  7. John Nash
  8. John Walker

Which will it be?

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4 Responses to Bad Penny: two big sequences left plus list of pen names

  1. j washburn says:

    I’m voting for Blackburn (but I may be biased).

  2. John Brown says:

    Indeed you are 🙂 Thanks for the input

  3. David Walton says:

    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.

  4. John Brown says:

    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.