7pm, 18 May 2010: I am done with the first draft of Red December Skies! Word count: 71, 700.

That totals the writing period to about six months, since I started it around November. I remember hiding in a stairwell, writing it while waiting for my Philosophy exam to start. (Hey, it was Philosophy - and it was an open-book exam.) I banged out the last hundred pages this past week, straight after my exam (so that's an average of ten pages per day, approx). Writing seriously demands discipline. You can't edit a blank page, after all, as Jodi Picoult says. So the three-hour-a-day concentrated writing sessions really helped a lot.

And now it's done!

Well, of course, this is only the first draft, and I've got LOADS to edit. I just hope it doesn't seem too fragmented or draggy. This is my first attempt at alternating between two voices in the first person point-of-view. I felt weirded out writing from Jerry's POV initially, because first off, I don't know how to think from a guy's point of view. Guys are an alien species to me, as far as I'm concerned. So all I did was try to tone down on the imagery and insert more action, less talk, in my prose for Jerry. Another problem is that because I'm writing in Jerry's POV, I have to, like, be in love with Ethel. It's weird to be gushing over a girl (not that I made Jerry gush - still, it's weird), or at least noticing things about a girl that I expect guys to. Writing from Jerry's POV has made me consider things about him that I didn't know I had to know, and I love how that pushes me to dig deeper into my characters.

Next up: Lambs for Dinner. I'm addicted to writing in alternating POVs. I never knew it was that much fun to delve into both the heads of my main characters!

Done with the brief update. Now I'm off to do some intimate character sketches (get your minds out of the gutter). Later!