Draft One

[aryanhwy]

144 days.

Almost 300 handwritten A4 pages, which equates to roughly 550 A5 pages when typed.

104807 words, of which exactly 50,000 were written in November.

Approximately 1000 hours worth of Nightwish.

Draft Two (editing) starts tomorrow.

Comments

[ex_hrj]

Congratulations!

[aryanhwy]

Thank you! No small amount of credit goes to you and everything I've learned by watching your journey over the last few years. Thank you for sharing so much about the actual process of writing on your blog, especially since you come at it from a very analytical angle that I understand.

[ex_hrj]

That's cheering to hear.

[aryanhwy]

Despite a desire to write that is older than memory, there have always been bits and pieces that I have found to be gaping black holes. Much of what you've talked about of your own process has helped me figure out what tools I need to bridge those holes. And of course, it's very cool to watch one of your friends become a Real Live Author right in front of you (gives hope to all of us peons out there, hoping to do the same, someday, maybe). No matter what: You've done it. Ergo, it can be done.

[ex_hrj]

Do you know how much I cherish hearing things like, "You've done it; ergo it can be done"? What I usually hear is, "Ugh! I could never do that! You're scary-intimidating! / I'm just a normal human being unlike you."

[aryanhwy]

I could see that if your process was mysterious and opaque and black-box-ey. But you tell us how you do it! And when we have questions, you answer them! Yeah, you have some weird specialized knowledge that some others don't have -- but surely the reverse is true.

Then again, I'm often the person that people find scary-intimidating, so maybe we are both abnormal to other people, but you seem normal to me?