I haven't been updating my blog as frequently this year as I like (I try to get a post up at least once a month), but I have by no means been writing less! I have been working on The Midnight Files, my serial novel that will be three seasons (well, books, really) long.
I'm not generally a super fast writer. I average a book every 2 years, and that book averages 80k words. I wrote Season 2, The 50,000th Stair, in two years . . . and it is the longest book I've ever written at 147k words. So, you know, I am still writing, and I'll start writing Season 3 (which doesn't yet have a title) no later than November 1. In the meantime, I'm working on a different writing project with a friend of mine, which I hope to zip through quite quickly.
But none of that is exactly what I wanted to talk about. Instead, I'm going to tell you, in brief, the story of The 50,000th's Stair's finale.
The Midnight Files is written episodically -- and not just in that it's posted in episodes. The format of the story is, per season:
1st, introductory, assignment
Interlude at the Agency or in the past
2nd assignment
Continuation of previous interlude
3rd assignment
Continuation of previous interlude
4th assignment
Continuation of previous interlude
5th, season finale, assignment
Season extras
In each case, the assignments are of fairly comparable length except that the season finale is twice as long. In the case of Season 1, the assignments are between 7k and 11k words long and the season finale is 21k words long. In Season 2, the assignments are 14-22k words long, and the season finale is almost 36k words long.
As I was writing Season 2, I could guess the season finale was going to be a tizzy (I estimated 30-35k words) and that it was going to take a long time to write. I therefore set myself up for success, and managed to write quickly enough to give me seven months to write it before it was due.
Seven months! Plenty . . . right?
Well, apparently not, because six months in, I had very little. I knew (and from the season title, this shouldn't be a spoiler) my agents were going to travel down to the 50,000th stair and find something very interesting there. I had written the descent and found I couldn't write any further. Anything I tried, anything I planned, felt boring. What was more, even the descent felt boring. I struggled with it, and six of my seven months evaporated. I was getting desperate. I knew I needed to come at it from a different angle. But how?
Then my sister told me our mutual friend had lent her a book of Lovecraft's short stories. Now, I knew my friend had just read the 800-page book, and I'd heard of Lovecraft and even tried to read some of his stories before, but without success. All I had gleaned was that they had a very certain sort of atmosphere . . . and a different atmosphere and new direction was exactly what I needed.
"Dearest sister!" I cried. "Lend me the book! I need it now, this moment! Despite never having had any interest in Lovecraft before, I'm going to immediately devour the whole thing and base my own story on its prose style, tropes, and philosophy!"
The fact that I'd tried to read a couple of his stories before and failed meant nothing. I began immediately, and did exactly what I said I would. I read the stories, and I rewrote the descent in something vaguely reminiscent of his style. (I reference him clearly enough that readers familiar with his work should definitely recognize the influence; but, obviously, the writing, ideas, and content are wholly my own.)
It worked. It worked marvelously. The finale basically wrote itself. I rewrote the whole thing in two weeks (the first version was only 27k; I tend to be sparse on first writes) and then deeply edited the first portion and got it double-proofread before my seven months were out.
And then I collapsed. I wasn't done, but I collapsed, because I'd been working 40 hours a week and also writing 20 to 40 hours a week for a month.
But I wasn't done. A month passed as I recovered, and then . . . and then a new opportunity came my way, one unrelated to writing, and I desperately needed to immediately start work on it. So I gave myself a week and a half, and during that time I binge-rewrote and edited (while still working nearly full time) the rest of it, edited it, got it proofread, and did the season extras while I was at it.
All in all, from start to finish, almost all the writing took place within a 3 month period, with 6 months of me going in circles. The finale ended up being long enough that, with the season extras, I was left with a 6-month lead before the next part is due. That should be plenty of time . . . right?
The next part will not be Lovecraftian. Obviously. The beauty of The Midnight Files is that each assignment is in a different style and referencing different tropes and subgenres. As for what it will be--?
I'll find out, I guess.
(Incidentally, the book of Lovecraft short stories I read is by the Library of America. I highly recommend it. It is a very high quality print, and they somehow fit 800 pages into one inch of spine, so it doesn't kill my poorhands. I also, after reading all those stories, ended up not only liking the vast majority of them, but even really liking the one I previously couldn't get through, "The Shadow Out of Innsmouth" -- which, incidentally, benefits from being read with its companion story, also in that book. (I read the stories out of order; when I came back to that one, I'd read about half of the rest of the book.) For me, Lovecraft is an author I had to invest in to enjoy . . . though I still find his Cthulhu lore less interesting than many of his other elements. Certainly, as he himself acknowledged, his best story by far is "The Colour Out of Space"; it is the epitome of its type and essentially without flaw. But every story has something to recommend it. I bought my own copy after reading my friend's, and I'll read it again. Pity my dog gnawed on it.)
