When we left our hero (that’s me), he was knocking on the door of the 70,000 word mark of his novel, The Ghost Smuggler.

Yesterday, after some back and forth as I deleted and rewrote chunks of the book, I reached 70,310 words. The scene I wrote was a big showdown between Kaei and one of the protagonists and I think it turned out pretty well. There’ll be more work to do during the revision stage but I’m happy with it as a first draft.

I’ve been targeting 80,000 words for this draft which is about 30,000 words less than my original first draft and a nice length for a first novel. Based on where I am now it’s going to come in pretty close to that number. Kaei has dealt with one of the main protagonists and is just about to deal with the other, then there’ll be a brief closing scene and I’ll reach The End. The first draft won’t quite be finished at that point. I still need to go back and replace a couple of chapters to tighten up the story and fill in some plot holes. I think that’s going to get me pretty close to the 80,000 word mark.

Once I’d finished my writing, we headed out to Stonegrill for a nice steak and then on to English Bay where I sat and read Hugh Howey‘s Wool (which I’m really enjoying) until Vancouver’s annual firework competition started.

Oh, and I also discovered I treat opening lines the same way as Stephen King and use the same research technique as Joe Hill. Which is nice.

[Forward Progress by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 4th August 2013]