Tiberius Bound 1st draft complete

It’s been a long time coming but I finished the first draft of Tiberius Bound yesterday. It came in at a shade under 74,000 words, which is pretty much on the money as far as pure word-count goes.

I started TB, as you may know if you’ve followed my posts over the last few months, during last year’s NaNoWriMo challenge and managed to successfully get the 50,000 words done in 30 days. After getting through the slog of NaNoWriMo I found myself pretty much ‘written’ out and didn’t really get much more of it done until late January and then it was sporadic.  I had days when I added a few thousand words but mostly there were none.

It’s taken far too long to get to this point but at least I can now start the real work of editing. The real shaping can only take part once there is something to shape and that’s how I view what a first draft is. Screenwriter Jason Arnopp refers to his first drafts as ‘draft zero’, which is probably more accurate.

Anyway, I can start looking back at the early work written six months ago as it’s not at all fresh in my mind and begin to smooth it out – cut anything which doesn’t add to character or advance the plot and add to sections which are too brief.

So; head down, bum on seat and crack on. Job’s a good ‘un.

Tiberius sequel nears first draft completion

After having broken the back of the first draft of my Tiberius Found sequel – Tiberius Bound – during the NaNoWriMo challenge last year I’m at last nearing first draft completion. I think I was a little ‘written-out’ after the mammoth 50,000+ words in November and didn’t even revisit the WIP (work-in-progress) until January.

Since then I’ve chipped away at the remaining elements and have less than one chapter to go. It’s the final fight between the good/bad guys and I’m finding the choreography a little tricky. However, it’s coming along nicely and should have it nailed in a week or so.

Now the only thing I need to consider is the cover image …