ZOMBIE NOVEL: 90,000 Words Reached!

Holy frickin' frijoles! It seems like yesterday when I started on my zombie novel, DEATHBREED (although I think it was actually April 13, if my backdated calendar is to be believed). I'd thought then that the first draft would need to be 90,000 words in length (approximately 350 pages in its final, printed form). I remember thinking, "I'll never make it." Yet I did and am still not done, although I've just now entered the final act. Another 30,000 words to go and it should be done... The first draft, anyway! Then it's time to go over it again and again, as many times as it takes to get to the final polish--that moment of moments when I can lean back and say, "Goddamn! This shit kicks ass and it can't kick no more!"

I know first novels are supposed to suck, LOL, but I got my fingers crossed anyway. I'm betting my prior experience as a screenwriter and author of short fiction/non-fiction will mitigate the mistakes a lot of new authors make. I didn't exactly fall off the turnip truck, you know! Maybe first novels are only supposed to suck in comparison to your later novels, when you've perfected your voice and honed your craft to a fine, razor's edge.

I know for a fact there's a ton of good stuff in my novel; the trick is in the editing to make sure everything shines through. I can live with a few mistakes, but I won't let the novel out of my hands until it's as perfect as I can make it. I recognize perfection as being an impossible goal, but am not naive enough to think that all my prose comes out golden on the first try, hence the phrase "as perfect as I can make it." Kind of like shooting a movie. Rarely do you get what you want on the first take! So too it is with a first draft. But I'm in the homestretch now, racing toward the finish line, full speed ahead... What a glorious ride it is!