After five years of work, I’ve finally finished the manuscript for Grim Deep. That means once I’ve typed up the 108 handwritten pages I’ve written for Grim February, the first draft of the novel is done. The novel, as it stands, has 23 chapters. I have 73,103 words in Scrivener right now. Plus the about 37,800 words I am estimating for the handwritten portion, that means the novel is roughly 111,000 words long. If that estimation is correct – we will see after I’ve typed it up – it’s probably a bit on the long side. It would be longer than Ender’s Game. Well, at least it’s easier to cut things in editing than to write new stuff.

For Grim February, this means I went from 11 chapters to 23 and wrote 108 handwritten pages in just over a month. And let’s not forget: I finally finished the book! Which is a complete success, as far as I am concerned. True, it took me a week into March to finish the work on the project. But then March is an unreasonably short month, as I mentioned before. And my wife and me also contracted SARS-CoV-2 a little over a week ago, which slowed me down a tad over the last few days.

But that is all behind me now. It feels incredibly good to have accomplished this. There is still a ton of work ahead of me until I can consider this novel done. And I have no idea if it is any good, to be honest. But I have finished my manuscript! I’m going to bed now. My brain is drained. But tomorrow, I will celebrate!

Grim February 4