Standing At The Threshold

Bit of a portentous title, but as regards The Faceless, it's also true, in more ways than one.

The current word count on the infernal beast that is to be my second published novel (crosses fingers, knocks on wood and eyes the heavens for signs and portents) stands at 99,229. Since I aim with my 1st drafts for a rate of 2500 words a day, tomorrow- all being well- should take me over that first threshold, the 100,000 word mark. Which feels a bit momentous, but probably only because I'm here making a big thing of it on my blog.

It's rattling along at a fair old rate, although this is first draft- the months between finishing this and having to hand in the completed manuscript will be taken up with some fairly intensive research and rewriting. Hell, at times this is the easy part.

Not in the last week though. Which- bejazus- brings me to the oither threshold. Basically- without wanting to spoil anything- there is a place in this novel. A Bad Place. A very, very Bad Place. Much of the book revolves around getting a disparate bunch of characters to go there. Once they are there... stuff happens. Not particularly nice stuff. Scary stuff, even. Who'd've thought.

Now, Chapter 21 was the bit where, having wrangled various characters together, they ended up in the Bad Place. Which as well as being Bad, is also rather Big. And my notes for this chapter were, basically, 'They go there, wander around, and stuff happens.'

Result? Chapter 21 is probably the single most humongous chapter in the book to date. It felt like it went on forever; at times I wondered what the hell the point of it was, and if it would ever be over. But today, I finished it. And wrote a scene where I scared the hell out of myself in the process.

Now the fun starts, with the bad stuff happening. Hopefully, it should be fairly plain sailing from here. Hopefully. But there's no way of being sure, because from this point on, all the rules that seemed established in the preceding chapters go out of the window...

So now you know a bit more about The Faceless, because you know you wanted to. There'll be a proper press release in the not-too-distant future, and hopefully there'll be a book trailer.

Stay tuned.

Till next time!