First draft of Bad Penny finished

Folks, this book was a blast to write. I feel like I did when I wrote “Loose in the Wires.” Here are my stats.

• Pre-draft work: 135 hours
• First draft: 252 hours
• Total: 387 hours
• Words: 93,131
• Words per hour for draft: 362 (holy crap, that’s glacier speed!)
• Chapters: 29
• Words per chapter: ~3,100

I’m surprised at my drafting speed on this one.  I’m usually between 500-600 words per hour. Of course, there were a few spots where I ran into huge gaping holes in my invention.  For example, at the end of June I finished the climax. But I couldn’t write the last two chapters, which usually take no time at all, because I realized I knew nothing about the criminal justice system.  I knew TV generalities, but not the kind of detail I need.  Not enough to envision the last 5,000 words.  So all my writing time in July was spent researching.  There were a couple other invention stops earlier on.  So that’s my excuse.  Let’s hope the next one goes faster so I’m not totally embarassed.

If I were full time, I could have finished this in 10 weeks. As it was, I started drafting in January.  My goal is to write two books a year. I’m not going to make it at this speed.  Let’s see how book 2 goes.

Here are my next steps. I’m going to let BP sit for three to four weeks to cool.  I’ll then read it and revise.  Then it goes out to my readers. I hope to be shopping this one around by the end of September.

In the meantime, I’ve already been noodling around with the ideas for book two in this series. My goal is to finish the working outline while this one’s cooling off.