The Kutter Diaries, Day One
Today on this blog, I'm starting...The Kutter Diaries! I promise not to ruin the book for you, but I'm going to post regular updates about my work-in-progress, both on the writing side and the publication side.
Kutter will be a novella, approximately 35,000 words. I have a publisher and a publication date, along with an amusing story about how it sold, but I'm not allowed to blab about that yet. My deadline is December. The plan is to get Kutter done ridiculously early, but we'll see how well that works out. (Technically, it's due "by December," so we'll say 11:59 PM on Sunday, November 30th.)
For the purposes of this diary, I'm going to count today as the first official day of writing, even though I'd previously written a whopping 150 or so words, which I mostly rewrote today anyway. As with many of my projects, I know how the book ends, and I have a few key moments planned out, but much of the story remains a mystery. I've also written up a draft of the back-cover blurb, at the request of the publisher. So there's already a solid framework in place. But will it last...?
I don't do character sketches in advance beyond very broad strokes, so the first day of writing was mostly about a) developing the main character and b) refining the tone. I say "refine" because I already knew the overall tone...it's a dark comedy, but not over-the-top. It's not a laugh-a-minute, and in fact, there's very little genuine humor in what I wrote today. This is a much different approach than Benjamin's Parasite and a recently completed novelette, which are big, wacky horror/comedies.
Today's word count and total so far: 1211.
Kutter will be a novella, approximately 35,000 words. I have a publisher and a publication date, along with an amusing story about how it sold, but I'm not allowed to blab about that yet. My deadline is December. The plan is to get Kutter done ridiculously early, but we'll see how well that works out. (Technically, it's due "by December," so we'll say 11:59 PM on Sunday, November 30th.)
For the purposes of this diary, I'm going to count today as the first official day of writing, even though I'd previously written a whopping 150 or so words, which I mostly rewrote today anyway. As with many of my projects, I know how the book ends, and I have a few key moments planned out, but much of the story remains a mystery. I've also written up a draft of the back-cover blurb, at the request of the publisher. So there's already a solid framework in place. But will it last...?
I don't do character sketches in advance beyond very broad strokes, so the first day of writing was mostly about a) developing the main character and b) refining the tone. I say "refine" because I already knew the overall tone...it's a dark comedy, but not over-the-top. It's not a laugh-a-minute, and in fact, there's very little genuine humor in what I wrote today. This is a much different approach than Benjamin's Parasite and a recently completed novelette, which are big, wacky horror/comedies.
Today's word count and total so far: 1211.
posted by Jeff Strand at 4:22 PM
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