Hero's Quest, Update 7-15-08

For the first time since I wrote two sample chapters for this book nearly nine years ago, the end is in sight.

"Hero's Quest" originated in my mind in 1996 as part of the back story for another tale that I'd been working on in some form since 1991. Both have evolved and matured considerably over the years, but nonetheless, the seeds for the story have been long in coming.

In late 1999, I wrote a sample chapter for a "Hero's Quest" novel, more as practice than as a real desire to see the tale told in the form of narrative fiction. I always envisioned it as a motion picture, never as a novel. A year later, I turned that chapter in (after some revision) as an entry for a creative writing class I was in, in addition to a second chapter that I had written for fun. Two of my teachers had read them, Karen Smith (my English 101 teacher) and Paul Cioe (my Creative Writing, English 102, and Writing for the Media teacher) and both of them felt that I should pursue the book and continue writing it. Still, I had visions of movies dancing in my head, which was still the plan when I wrote a seventeen page synopsis a few years later. But last year, when I was bored and alone at my apartment, I got to looking at the old chapters, which I occasionally played with in revisions, and decided to move forward. I wrote an additional three chapters last year before I moved, when I lost the passion for the project and just about everything else in the following months.

I picked it up again this past May and have been writing steadily (if not everyday) ever since.

But even in all of this time, I never knew what the length would be. Sure, I knew where it began and ended, but if it were a book, how many chapters would it be? How many words long? How many pages. I've finally got a pretty good idea on that.

As of today, I'm up over 80,000 words in length. I am just beginning to write page 300. I've just started Chapter Eighteen. And the climax of "Hero's Quest" has begun. There's four chapters left, two for my big finale, one for some of the characters' personal resolutions, and one as an epilogue. "Hero's Quest" will end up somewhere in the 340 to 375 pages range, but I don't know what the final word count will be on this draft. If I were a betting man, I'd put my wager on 350 pages. That's not much left to write, when in comparison to what I've written before, and I'm fairly confident that I will have this draft done before the end of the month.

It's really weird to be in this place, knowing that this phase of the journey is ending. Brad and I had talked briefly about the book yesterday and I compared writing it to running a marathon, where you just have to dig in and do it. If I were to continue that running metaphor, then I'm on the final stretch and can see the finish line. Of course, when this race is over, I've got another one to begin with the revisions, but I'm really looking forward to that. I like rewriting as it gives me greater control because a lot of the "hard" part for me is figuring out things in the first draft that may not have been covered in conception or synopsis phase of development. While there is still a bit of figuring out a new level of detail, it's generally discovering things about bits that are already down on paper, and new ideas tend to be in direct response to problems that are on paper, as opposed to gaps in the imaginations, which I think are harder to solve.

But yeah, four chapters left. Wow. I've never known how much further there was other than where I was in my story. But I've got a good idea of what occurs from here on out and how that will be laid out in the structure. My characters could surprised me, but right now, where I see it going is the logical result of everything they've done thus far - even those surprises they've thrown in. It all makes sense and it's wrapping itself up.