{"id":225,"date":"2026-09-13T16:06:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/?p=225"},"modified":"2026-09-13T16:06:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:06:02","slug":"changing-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"Changing Gear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have been working on my second book, Sudden Deaths, for seven months now. Up to this week I had written 18,000 words, or about a quarter. At that rate it would take me almost two years before I completed the first draft. We are back in &#8216;I don&#8217;t even buy green bananas&#8217; territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I decided it was time for a change of gear. If I write 1,000 words a day, or, more realistically, 7,000 words a week (good days, bad days), then I should finish in about eight weeks, or early November, which would give a reasonable prospect of a release in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the next question is, &#8216;Is that feasible?&#8217; I started a regime where writing takes precedence over everything else (well, almost &#8211; I couldn&#8217;t bail out on watching the Last Night of the Proms with friends, obviously) on Tuesday. Over the last five days I have written over 10,000 words, so I&#8217;m doing double the target and it should be possible to complete the first draft by the end of October (working to the original target, but as a minimum).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Second draft, end of November. ARCs produced and distributed to anyone who wants to read them in December. January for final edits. Publish in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What could go wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been working on my second book, Sudden Deaths, for seven months now. Up to this week I had written 18,000 words, or about a quarter. At that rate it would take me almost two years before I completed the first draft. We are back in &#8216;I don&#8217;t even buy green bananas&#8217; territory. So [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226,"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daparsons.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}