I've got at least 8,000 words left with this first draft. It's been a long time since I've gotten that far on a novel, maybe a three years or so. Undead and Inhuman didn't make it this far.
I already know some of the changes that need to be made with the next draft, but I'm not going to go back and edit just yet. No, the important thing right now is to finish this first draft, flawed as it is. Then you sit back for a while, take a breath, and then you start to edit. I do know that I finally found my villain, and it isn't the zombies. It's a character that came out of nowhere really.
There was another character that I had from the beginning. I thought he would be the bad guy and someone else would be the hero. Now my villain's the hero and my hero's a relatively minor character.
It's funny how your writing can make up its own decisions after a certain point. You think you're in charge because you're putting the words down, but then you take a quick look behind you and realize that your subconscious is the real boss. You don't know where most of that stuff came from. You had a gap in front of you and your brain said, "This is what's going to happen next. Deal with it."
Anyways, 8,000 words to go, though I might give myself an extra 10,000 words just in case, but I don't think the first draft is going to run any longer than that.
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