But only by a slight margin.
Yes, I DID get some writing done this month. Yes, it WAS more words than April. No, it was NOT as epic as March’s 10,000 words.
Ok, enough beating around the bush. Just as I had predicted (and, to be fair, warned you about in last month’s post), a certain game took over my life for a couple weeks and no writing was done. However, somewhat similar to what happened in April, I was able to pull through and get a couple really productive writing sessions in to add another 4,000 words to the draft.
So what did those 4,000 words add? Well, it was just the rest of chapter 5. That chapter actually ended up being a bit longer than I expected, so much so that I even tweaked it from the original outline. I had to take a chunk of what was originally supposed to be the end of chapter 5 and put it in to chapter 6. Whether or not that means I’ll have to do the same for chapter 6 is yet to be seen, but it may just be that I simply add a chapter to the outline so that I don’t keep punting things down the road.
The funny thing is, and I believe I mentioned it last month, but this is still the portion of the story building up the suspense. The characters don’t fully understand what is going on, though they obviously know that something is horribly wrong (finding a bunch of blood often does lead to those types of conclusions). You, as the reader, understand the premise of “smartish zombies in space,” but they don’t get it yet. Well, that’s about to change. Finally, finally, they’re going to stumble on to something in chapter 6 with an (as of right now) official zombie reveal. They still won’t have the full picture (because where’s the fun in that?), but at least they’ll know this isn’t some simple mining dispute with employees vs. their corporate overlords.
I’m so glad that I chose to write this as my next novel project. I have always loved high intensity, suspenseful thrillers with good old horror thrown in. I’ve never been one to enjoy overly gory stuff. I understand that blood is going to be around (especially in a story involving zombies), but a story shouldn’t need to rely on the shock factor of blood and guts to be scary. That’s my goal. Yes, there is blood. Yes, there are zombies. But the suspense of what’s hiding around the corner is so much more satisfying.
Alright, I think I’ve waxed philosophical long enough. Let’s see if we can beat 4,000 words this month!