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Steelgod September - The Gears of Anbar is Finished

Posted by Nathan Major on Friday, September 2, 2011 at 8:32 PM
After around a month (more or less), The Gears of Anbar - The Might of the Steelgods Book Two is...FINISHED!


In celebration I'm posting this post on the new blogger format! It is awesome! We can now tell for sure that it is owned by google, because everything is so white!

At any rate, here are some stats.

Wordcount Stats

Total Words: 112,446
Total Days Covered: 33
Total Days Actually Writing: 28 (Sundays and driving to/from WorldCON)
Words per Day Average: 4,019 (holy crap)
Total actual time spent (in hours) writing: ~40 hours (That's a full time job for one week)
Words per Hour: 2,811 (holy crap again)
Most written in one day: 11,100 words (yesterday, Sep. 1nd)
Least written in one day: 1,040 words (Tuesday, August 30th)

Plot Stats

Number of Chapters: 26 (not counting the prologue and epilogue)
Incorrectly numbered chapters: I have two chapters "2"s for some reason, messing up all future chapter listings.
Characters carried over from Steelgods 1 (physical presence required): 4
New named main characters introduced: 5
Main characters killed: *spoiler*
Times Cevan got the crap kicked out of him: 3
Most used joke: "Like the number" (in reference to when Cevan would introduce himself)
Adherence to original outline written last year: ~40%

Compared to Steelgods 1 (faq)

(note: I'm too lazy to stat check, so this is mostly personal opinion)

Is Gears a better book? Yes
Are there more or less Peacemakers in it? Less
Are there more or less Gears of Anbar in it? ...are you seriously asking this question?
Is there more or less action? Less (aaaand there go my Alpha readers)
Is there more or less lovin with the ladies? Loads more (aaaand here they come back)
Are there more on-screen deaths? No
Are there more impactful on-screen deaths? Absolutely
Are there...politics? Sort of, yes.
Is it funner? I think so.
Better structured? Absolutely. Writing this made me realize how much work Steelgods 1 needs.
Wait, that wasn't a joke? No, there are actual Steam Spiders.
...how does that work? Just read it and find out.
Is Cevan less of a moron? He still has poor self-esteem, but I think he's doing a good job "growing up" over the course of the series.
What about turning points? The "turning point" moment in this book is (in my opinion) much more dramatic than in Steelgods 1. I'll have a larger impact over the rest of the series.
So you are still planning on writing six of these things, huh? Yep.
Favorite Gears exclusive character: Pitronus
Favorite series character: Either Roc or Devent
Wait, Devent? Isn't he like a huge jerk? Yes, but he's a complex character, and that's why I like him. Rook was my favorite character from Effulgent Corruption, remember? And he's like a mass-murderer psychopath.
Maybe you need therapy. I've got a BS in Psychology, so I can therapize myself!

...since this has gotten far off the rails, here's the magical WORDLE! Yeah, I'm surprised Devent and Rosemary are more prominent than Stewart and Pitronus. I guess they are his step-siblings.

I apparently also use the words "like", "just", and "back" a lot. "Back" is a carry-over from Effulgent Corruption if I remember correctly. I should probably keep that in mind when I start the next book.

Next project? Editing Steelgods 1. Then the daunting task of editing Effulgent Corruption. In the mean time I'm debating writing something else, but we'll see.

The first step is outlining the edits for Steelgods 1, because I have a lot of changes that need to be made and don't really have it organized. So I'm going to re-read it, write down those edits, pull up my two Alpha readers' line edits, and go from there.

Anyway, Gears is done! Now to drown myself in video games.
Labels: book complete, stats, STEAM SPIDERS, steelgod september, the gears of anbar CNHolmberg said...


September 5, 2011 at 9:07 AM 
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First Draft : 150k Words, 100% Nathan Major

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